Don seemed to relax minutely once they turned onto a paved road. The fog was less dense, and the car's engine roared as they finally accelerated beyond the agonizing creep that had carried them away from the house. Charlie leaned his head against the cool surface of his window, staring out at the darkness sliding by. The sound of the explosion, the terrible glow of the flames reflected in the fog, the sight of Don limping out of the trees, face pale under dirt and scratches... It all looped in his brain, repeating endlessly.
Charlie turned, letting his head rest the other way, facing toward Don. He looked gray in the faint blue light from the dashboard, his face set, skin pale under smudges of dirt or blood. Don's hands were clenched hard on the wheel, though the road was straight and empty. He'd been limping. There had been an explosion.
The car was slowing. Charlie looked forward and realized they were approaching an intersection. Don glanced left and right as he came to a stop at the sign, then accelerated again, going straight through.
Charlie opened his mouth to ask where they were going, then closed it. It didn't matter where they were going. It mattered what would happen when they got there, and Charlie wasn't ready to ask that question. He let his eyes half-close. He was tired, though it had really only been a handful of hours since he'd slept. The dark outside, and the warmth of the car, and Don's nearness all combined to lull him into a doze. He snapped awake at a sudden lateral motion, his eyes flashing open to see Don's head jerking up as he yanked on the wheel.
Don pried a hand from the steering wheel to rub his face, and Charlie's heart raced as he realized what he was seeing. Don was about to drop. He'd gotten them out and been hurt in the process, and he couldn't go much further now. Charlie flushed with anger--at himself, for not seeing it sooner. Don, like anyone, operated from finite resources, and they must surely be close to total depletion now.
Charlie swallowed the emotion and the bitter rush of adrenaline and said, "Don, could you pull over?"
Don spared him a sharp, worried glance. "You okay?"
As though he were the one--Charlie nodded, doing his best to look shaky. It wasn't hard.
"I just need to--um--could you?"
"Yeah, yeah, Charlie, of course."
Don was already braking, pulling the car carefully onto the shoulder of the two-lane road. Charlie wrenched his seatbelt off and opened the door, stumbling out into the cold air. The sky was clearing, and there were stars visible past the clouds. Charlie stared up at the blazing points of light in the darkness, mind wiped blank until he heard Don's door open.
"Charlie?"
Charlie came sharply back to earth. The headlights were still on, the car still running. Charlie could see Don's face a little better out here, and he looked just as ragged and weary as he had inside.
"Hey," Charlie said. "Sorry. I just needed a break."
Don frowned, and Charlie added, "Maybe I could drive for a while?"
Don's frown vanished, and he started to laugh, but Charlie could hear the unsteady edge to it. Charlie started around the car as Don tried to stifle the sound, loud in the open silence around them. There wasn't another car in sight or earshot, just trees on either side of a long straight road.
"No," Don was saying as Charlie came toward him, "No, Charlie, you're not--"
"You're bleeding," Charlie replied.
Don stopped laughing all at once and looked down at his leg, giving himself away. Charlie forced himself to keep breathing and opened the back door on the driver's side. He gestured toward the seat where Don's duffle bag was resting.
"Get in."
Don looked up at him again, frowning. "Charlie..."
"Either let me drive, or let me help you," Charlie said in his most reasonable voice.
Don stared at him for another long minute--Charlie could feel the warmth inside the car pouring out against his side, battling the crisp cold air around them. Don ducked into the driver's door, and Charlie gritted his teeth and prepared to refuse to get back in himself--but Don was only turning the car off. He pocketed the keys as he shut the door, and came around beside Charlie.
Charlie got into the backseat, scooting across to make room as Don joined him. Charlie reached forward and switched on the interior light as Don pulled the door shut, sealing them in with the last of the heat. The car was utterly silent except for their breathing, no longer lost in the rumble of the engine and the road. Charlie opened Don's bag to find the first aid kit, and was confronted with a mass of red fleece. His blanket.
Charlie tugged it out, turning back toward Don with it in his hands. Don was leaning back in the seat, watching him with half-lidded eyes.
"You went back," Charlie said. "And you got my blanket."
A small smile twisted Don's mouth, and he murmured, "It's cold out, Charlie," as though that somehow made sense of his priorities.
Charlie shook his head as Don's eyes closed, laying the blanket over Don's lap; it was cold. Don was alarmingly still under Charlie's hovering hands, but he kept breathing. If he was asleep Charlie had no interest in waking him.
After a moment, though, Don blinked and said, "Kit's in my bag too."
"Right." Charlie turned away to find the white plastic box.
He got out the antiseptic wipes first, and braced one hand on Don's shoulder as he swabbed Don's face with the other. Don flinched when the alcohol touched a small scrape, but everything else was just dirt, and Don's eyelids lowered, eyelashes hovering just above his cheeks. Charlie pressed a quick kiss to the sharp-smelling skin beside Don's eye, and Don made a small sound, little more than a sigh.
Charlie forced himself not to be distracted, and moved on to Don's hands. The scrapes were worse there, and Charlie moved carefully over the red scar of his week-old cut. Don's hands were warm in his, fingers twitching slightly under his ministrations. It was strange to be the one doing this, strange how Don let him. But they were free now; they could do what they liked. Don wasn't his guard, and Charlie wasn't anyone's prisoner. He had as much right to look after Don as Don had to look after him. Charlie tried not to think too much about how much blood came off on the wipes with no corresponding cuts beneath.
When he'd finished, he looked up at Don's face to find Don watching him.
"Let me see your leg," Charlie said softly. Don just nodded and unbuttoned his pants, lifting up far enough to push them down. Charlie winced at the messily wrapped bandage on Don's thigh, just below the end of his shorts. He pushed the edge of Don's coat back, trying to arrange the blanket around him to keep Don warm. Charlie had to peel away layers of tape and gauze before he saw blood, and then he had to turn his face away.
"What...?"
Don was silent so long that Charlie had to look up, wondering if he'd fallen asleep, but Don was watching him.
"In the basement," Don said quietly. "One of them was still alive."
Charlie looked back down, peeling the bloodied gauze away to reveal a cut longer than his hand, angling slightly upward across Don's thigh. It was shallow, bleeding only sluggishly, and held mostly-closed by small strip bandages. Charlie cleaned it up carefully, picking away the strips that had snapped. Don hissed once, then went utterly silent. His leg was hard with tension under Charlie's hand, visibly trembling by the time Charlie finished. But Don held the end of the gauze in place while Charlie wrapped his leg, tightly and neatly, and when it was done Don grabbed an alcohol swab and washed his blood from Charlie's hands.
Charlie caught Don's hand and ducked over it, pressing a quick kiss to one reddened knuckle. Don squeezed Charlie's hands and then pulled away to tug his pants carefully back up.
It was then that Charlie noticed it, watching Don's coat gap away from his body as he moved. Charlie reached out unthinkingly across Don's chest to touch the empty holster under his arm. He didn't have anything tucked down the back of his pants now, and he'd come out of the trees empty-handed. "Don?"
Don shrugged out of his coat and then out of the holster without answering, and Charlie's stomach twisted. Don looked more naked without a holster on than he had with his pants down, and it was strange to see him that way now, out in the open, exposed.
"Don, where's your gun? Where..."
Don paused in maneuvering his coat back on to look straight at Charlie. "They're gone. We're good guys now, we don't need to shoot anybody, and we really don't need to get caught with those guns."
They're gone. The gun Don had used, the gun Charlie had used. Up in smoke along with the bodies, leaving no evidence. Charlie looked down at his own hands, wiped clean. Don had insisted he wasn't a killer.
"Thanks for this," Don said quietly, and then tugged on Charlie's arm. "Come on, we can't stop again until we find gas and coffee."
Charlie nodded, and when Don offered him the blanket he took it, carrying it with him as he moved back to the front seat.
Don fought the temptation to change directions. They would probably have to sooner or later, but as long as he had no idea where they were, they were best off traveling in a straight line. Eventually they would have to run across something. Even if they were headed north, they'd eventually hit the Canadian border, and at least that would be a landmark.
Or they'd run out of gas, still in the middle of nowhere--on Christmas--and maybe freeze to death, or be found by the police, or freeze to death and then be found by the police. Don shook his head and checked the gas gauge. They had nearly half a tank left, and it wasn't that cold outside. They were bound to find something sooner or later.
A sensible voice somewhere in the back of Don's head said that once he found out where they were, he'd have to decide where they were going, but now wasn't the time to think about that. Get Charlie away, get them both fed, get enough sleep so they could think straight. Later... later he could figure out what came next. For now he'd just follow a straight line, and that would have to be enough.
When Don saw a glow in the distance, he reached over, gently shaking Charlie's shoulder. Charlie straightened up quickly under his touch.
"What's that?" he asked immediately, so at least Don hadn't hallucinated it.
"Coffee, I hope," Don said.
His eyes were gritty, his whole body almost numb with exhaustion. He'd been tempted to stay in the backseat under Charlie's hands, but they'd still been too close to the house to risk it, and they needed--
It was a little two-pump gas station, attached to a garage. Some of the light came from that, and some came from the other small building tucked close beside it, sharing a driveway off the road, with JANET'S painted across the two brightly-lit windows.
Food. Don heard Charlie's stomach growl in unison with his own. They'd had energy bars at some point, well before they'd escaped, but proper food had been in short supply all week. Charlie was opening the door almost before Don stopped the car beside a pump. He got out and headed toward the door of the diner without even looking back toward Don, and then backpedaled sharply when a burly man in jeans and a heavy canvas jacket stepped outside. Don shoved the map into his coat pocket and slammed his door.
"Fill it up?" the man asked, and Don nodded, moving around the car toward Charlie, angling himself between him and the stranger.
"Go on in," he added, nodding back toward the diner. "Coffee's fresh, Jan just made a pot."
Don nodded again, got his hand on Charlie's elbow and steered him to the door. It was bright and warm inside, filled with the smells of coffee and deep-frying. A woman--Jan, presumably--stood behind the counter, wearing an apron over a red and green sweater. There was no one else present, a handful of tables all empty. The doorway behind Jan would lead to the kitchen, and past the tables Don could see the doors to the restrooms.
She smiled at them so brightly that Don found himself smiling back, pushing aside the problem of escape routes.
"Come on in and have a seat, boys, Tom'll have you ready to go in no time. You look like you've been driving a long way. Can I get you some coffee?"
Don nodded emphatically, towing Charlie toward a table in the middle, a compromise between the line of sight to the door and the availability of cover. Charlie followed, though his gaze stayed fixed on the counter; there was a chocolate cake there, sprinkled with red and green sugar, under a cover. Don pushed him into a seat and took the one across from it, where he could watch the door as well as the road. He tried to assure himself that their tactical situation was secure--that Tom and Jan displayed exactly no psychological characteristics of homicidal psychopaths--but he still felt naked without a gun. He forced a smile as Jan poured them cups of coffee.
The smell of coffee and the sound of it pouring hit Don low in the belly, reminding him that he'd been on the road for God knew how long and hadn't seen a bathroom since well before then. Don wrapped his hands around his mug and tried not to shift too obviously in his seat as Charlie finally settled right-way-around.
Jan said, "Kitchen's mostly closed, but I could fix something up if you want more than coffee--sandwiches, maybe?"
Charlie looked up sharply and said, "Cake?"
She chuckled, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Don. "Sweet tooth, huh?"
"We had to leave before dessert," Don said with a smile, the lie easy and automatic. Jan clucked and turned away, and Don waited only until she'd taken the cake into the kitchen to cut before he said, "I'll be right back, okay?"
Charlie's eyes went huge, his whole body tensing toward Don.
"Just to the bathroom," Don said, nodding toward the door. Even then Charlie made to follow him as he stood up. "Charlie, no. Alone."
Charlie sank slowly back down, nodding stiffly, and Don turned away with an effort. He was leaving Charlie alone, undefended, nearer to the outside door. They were the good guys now. This was how it had to be.
Don avoided looking toward the mirror until he was washing his hands and caught a glimpse of himself, pale and hollow-cheeked and strange in this ordinary bathroom. They hadn't been on the road nearly long enough to look like this, but no one would see the truth just looking at them.
Don splashed water on his face, wiped it dry on his sleeve, and got back out to the table.
Charlie was halfway through a huge slice of cake, and a matching one awaited Don. Charlie had already finished his cup of coffee, and a glass of chocolate milk stood beside it. Don grinned and sat down, tipping some of Charlie's milk into his coffee. Charlie smiled with his mouth full, frosting and sugar smeared on his lips, and went back to chewing as Don stirred his coffee and took a sip.
They were the good guys now. Charlie was sitting in a roadside diner eating chocolate cake. Don had done it. He'd gotten Charlie out.
When Don had thought about doing this--before he'd started--he thought of it almost like a case. This was the part where he was supposed to drive Charlie home, wrapped in an FBI jacket, and give him back to their dad. Hugs and smiles. A party.
But he'd left the FBI behind, and Charlie wouldn't recognize their father right now if he were standing in front of them with a sign. Don couldn't do anything until he told Charlie the truth. He fixed his gaze on his cake, then forced himself to pick up his fork and start eating, despite his abrupt loss of appetite. He chewed and swallowed, washing his bite down with more coffee, before daring to look up at Charlie again.
He was licking frosting off his fork, his eyes bright with pleasure, and Don couldn't help smiling back. He couldn't take that light from Charlie's eyes, not yet, not now, not here. He deserved this reprieve; they both did. Later, after they'd slept...
Later would be soon enough. Don had already done enough unforgivable things, and he wasn't going to get Charlie to California tonight. Hours wouldn't make a difference now.
The door from the cafe's kitchen opened, and Jan reappeared, bearing the coffee pot and two bowls of ice cream. Don raised his eyebrows at Charlie, who looked over his shoulder and then back to Don with a tiny smile. Don rolled his eyes, but he ate his bowl of ice cream along with his cake, only drawing the line when the next coffee refill came with a slice of strawberry pie. Charlie cheerfully dug in, and Jan assured Don that she'd box it up.
"And a few other things. We'd just have to throw it out anyway, we're closed tomorrow."
Charlie was frowning a little into his pie as she walked away. Don drank more coffee--black this time, Charlie had finished his milk--and watched him. He was still eating, though with longer and longer pauses between each bite, and then he started drawing patterns in the strawberry topping.
Don said, "Charlie?"
Charlie smiled reflexively as he looked up at Don, and Don's stomach twisted with an uncomfortable mix of happiness and dread.
"Sorry," Charlie said. "I was just thinking--it's Christmas, isn't it?" Don glanced at his watch, and Charlie waved away the few hours' difference. "Christmas Eve. I'm just--trying to think--I don't seem to have many associations. I know the date, the colors, the general idea, but not..."
"Well, not everybody celebrates Christmas," Don pointed out.
He could say more, but Charlie probably did have associations with Hanukkah. If it triggered something, if he started remembering right now, right here...
Charlie just shrugged. "I guess not," he said, and went back to eating his pie, his frown easing.
Don felt sick, coffee and guilt acid in his stomach. He should say more; Charlie shouldn't be comforted by so little. He deserved more. He deserved to know who he was. But Don just drank more coffee and watched Charlie eat.
Charlie made his own solo trip to the bathroom, his steps dragging as he walked away from Don and hurrying as he came back, wiping wet hands on his pants. Don stared down at his coffee and tried to pretend he hadn't watched the door the entire time Charlie was in there, waiting for him to call out.
When they went to leave, there was an entire paper shopping bag waiting for them at the counter, and Charlie's eyes lit up. Don was suddenly gladder he'd left two twenties under his coffee cup. Tom had come back in a while before and gone straight into the kitchen, but he reappeared while Jan was ringing them up. Don pulled the map out of his pocket and said, "I think we got turned around somewhere. Can you tell me the quickest way to the freeway?"
Tom snorted. "You think you got turned around? You headed for the interstate, or US-41?"
Don grimaced and started unfolding the map. "Which one's closer?"
Charlie leaned against Don's shoulder, watching as Tom and Jan debated the best route to I-39. Jan glanced up at them, and Don could see the moment she noticed their lack of personal space. He was about to elbow Charlie away when she smiled indulgently, and Don could see it on her face.
They hadn't stumbled across an island of tolerance in rural Wisconsin. She thought--she knew--that they were brothers.
Don looked away, focusing on the map as Tom settled on a set of directions. He committed them to memory before he folded up the map and towed Charlie, clutching his bag of treats like a treasure, back out to the car.
Charlie fell asleep as soon as the car warmed up, having settled the bag of food in the back seat and pulled his blanket into his lap. Don cracked his own window, letting the cold breeze keep him awake, and tried not to think about anything but navigating to the freeway. They'd head south, because there was nothing north but Canada, and south was Chicago. He'd left things in Chicago, and they'd need to at least stop there. Maybe spend a night, get some rest. His eyelids were sagging as he drove, though he managed to keep the car between the lines on the deserted back roads. A little further, and he could rest. A little further.
Don didn't think he'd ever been so glad to see a green interstate sign in his life. The promise of being able to tell where he was going kept him running until he saw a sign for a rest stop. Taking the exit wasn't so much a decision as a physical imperative. He parked under the lights in the little lot, glanced at the distance to the small brick building, with its bathrooms and vending machines and payphones, and then looked over at Charlie. He was fast asleep with his mouth open, drooling a little on the Ciera's immaculate upholstery. The car was warm, and Don didn't think he could possibly move more than a few feet.
"Charlie," he murmured, reaching over to unbuckle Charlie's seatbelt.
"Mm, kay," Charlie mumbled, squirming toward the door. Don climbed over into the passenger seat--his leg throbbed, protesting the movement, but Don was well past caring--and dragged Charlie more or less on top of himself as he reclined the seat. They'd keep warm enough this way to be safe overnight.
"Leg?" Charlie said, almost coherently, patting at Don's right hip even as he settled against Don's chest, awkwardly spreading the blanket over them both.
Don shifted Charlie a little more to his left side. "It's fine, Charlie. Go to sleep."
"Kay," Charlie said again, settling his head on Don's shoulder, and Don closed his eyes.
Charlie tugged Don into a stall to check his leg after they'd both taken a piss and washed up.
"Charlie," Don said, glancing around. "If anybody walks in here--"
"Then let's be quick," Charlie said impatiently.
Don sighed and followed him in, locking the door behind them. He leaned against a side wall and slid his pants down, and Charlie grinned at him and then dropped to his knees between Don's feet.
"Charlie," Don said, his voice strangled, but Charlie confined himself to unwinding the bandages around Don's leg.
"Looking good," he said, and Don's head thunked back hard against the metal divider.
Charlie smiled to himself. But it was looking good; there was barely any fresh blood on the bandages, and no sign of infection. Charlie squeezed on a fresh packet of antiseptic and rewrapped the bandages. He only set his hand on Don's opposite thigh to push himself to his feet, and waited until Don had his pants back up, his hands occupied with zipping them, to lean in for a quick kiss.
Don froze for an instant, then kissed him back gently. Charlie closed one hand in Don's shirt and let the other drift down to rest on Don's wrist. His hands had frozen in the act of doing up his pants, and his knuckles pressed against Charlie's belly when he shifted closer.
A door slammed somewhere outside the men's room, and Charlie jerked back. Don reached out and unlocked the door and stepped out of the stall with a wry smile.
"Come on, Charlie, places to go."
Charlie smiled gamely back, and they headed out to the car. Don got into the backseat, spreading the map out across the back of the driver's seat and frowning at it. Charlie sat beside him and dug through the bag of delicacies Jan had packed up for them, coming up with a box of cookies. Don took some without looking when Charlie held the box under his hand, and Charlie peered at the cookies as he ate. They were Christmas trees and Santa Clauses and reindeer and five-pointed stars, all sprinkled with red and green sugar like the cake last night. He recognized all the emblems of Christmas, but they felt less meaningful to him than chess, or even Scrabble. He ought to at least be familiar with the cookies, but there was nothing except their taste in his mouth right now.
Beside him, Don folded up the map and stretched awkwardly in the confined space.
"Let's take a walk," he said abruptly. "Stretch our legs before we get going. Bring the cookies."
Charlie nodded agreeably, allowing Don to grab a few more cookies before they both got out of the car.
Don walked with his hands jammed into his pockets, and Charlie tucked the cookies under one arm and imitated Don's posture, walking along beside him in the slowly-brightening morning. They'd slept the whole night jammed into the front seat together, and now, walking around in the daylight, the night before was starting to seem dreamlike: the violence of their escape, the explosion that followed it, the kindly waitress who'd fed him cake and chocolate milk. The cookies were real, though, and so were the cold aches in his fingers and elbow. Charlie took his hands from his pockets, flexed his fingers, and retrieved another cookie to munch on, then held them out for Don. Don took one, muttering, "Thanks," and Charlie nodded.
It didn't take long for them to reach the end of the sidewalk; it led only as far as the little building with the bathrooms and vending machines. Don just kept walking, though, skirting the building and stepping off onto the grass, coated in frost over hard-frozen ground. Charlie followed, stepping carefully in his unfamiliar shoes. He'd laced them tightly, but his feet still had a tendency to slide in them if he tried to walk too fast. Don was moving slowly this morning, though. He wasn't visibly limping, but lingering over each stride.
Don was in no hurry to get back in the car, Charlie realized. He wasn't in any hurry to get to where they were going. His shoulders were hunched--against the cold, maybe, though it had been colder when they first got out of the car and Don hadn't seemed bothered.
Charlie watched him in a series of sideways glances as they walked through the thin stand of trees growing beside the freeway, but Don kept staring down at the ground, only frowning slightly. Cars whizzed by steadily on the road: holiday travel. Again, Charlie tried to conjure up an association from the depths of his brain, but still none came. Whatever crimes he'd committed as an adult and forced himself to forget, he ought to have a childhood's worth of associations with these things--but maybe he'd had a particularly dismal childhood. Maybe that was how he'd gotten started on his life of crime.
Charlie shivered as the wind gusted, running down the back of his neck. For a moment his perception turned inside out. The world around him, the light so clear and the cold wind and Don, the cars going by and the smell of pine trees, all seemed dreamlike and impossible. It had to be the other that was real: blood and fear and a world bounded by four walls and covered in chalkboards.
"Charlie," Don said abruptly, snapping the world right-side-in again.
Charlie stopped walking and turned to face him, waiting. Don squinted at him. It was full daylight now, though the sky was a uniform gray. Don looked pale, still tired, the lines of his face grim in the unforgiving light.
Charlie blinked, waiting, trying to look patient and receptive to whatever Don might be about to say even as he planned how to resist being abandoned here, or wherever they stopped next.
Don seemed to see something in his face; he winced and looked away, toward the road. When he said, "Charlie," again there was less resolve in his voice, and he still didn't follow it with anything.
"Don?" Charlie asked finally.
Don met his eyes with a gaze so focused it seemed to bore into him. Charlie's breath caught, and then something shifted, and Don was looking through him, hardly seeing him at all.
"Don," Charlie said, a little sharper. One shift of his gaze, and Don seemed to be a thousand miles away and gaining speed.
Don looked down, shook his head and then shook himself all over.
"We need to go to Chicago," Don said finally, turning back toward the car. "That's where Wi--that's where I was hired. I left some stuff there, I need to pick it up before we go anywhere else."
We, Charlie thought, feeling warmed all over by Don's offhand use of the plural. We.
"Sure," Charlie said. "Chicago sounds good."
The drive to Chicago stretched, little by little. Don drove the speed limit, or under it, because the last thing they needed was to get pulled over now. They stopped for coffee, and then stopped to piss, and then stopped at the side of the road because it was snowing.
It wasn't that Don couldn't drive in snow, although it had been years since he'd done it. That had been up in the mountains, and this wasn't much more than flurries on gentle hills. But Charlie had his nose pressed to the glass as soon as the first flake swirled past the windshield, and it wasn't like Don had a schedule to keep.
He stopped the car on the shoulder, turned it off, and led Charlie away, down into the ditch and out the other side, past a stand of dead cattail reeds with snow already accumulating on their tops. Charlie just stood there, staring up at the sky, watching the snow fall on him. Don turned away and paced, up to the fence that marked the edge of the state's right-of-way and back down to the ditch.
After a while, he could see his own footprints in the snow, but Charlie was still standing there, hands in pockets, face upturned. His ears and nose were pink, but he was all right.
So far. Because Don had looked at him this morning, and not told, and gone on not telling. Charlie had woken him with a drowsy kiss, an exploratory hand under the blanket--Charlie had knelt between his feet in that bathroom stall--Charlie had stood there holding a box of cookies with red and green sugar dusted on his lips, waiting for Don to say something. And if he had told this morning, then what? They'd have gotten into the car and driven to Chicago with that between them? Or else Charlie would have run off, hitched a ride with the first long-haul trucker, or serial rapist, or perfectly decent Midwesterner to come along, and maybe been better off with any of them than with Don.
He couldn't even see an after anymore. He couldn't imagine Charlie being angry or scared or sick or disbelieving. He couldn't imagine anything that followed the telling.
He knew he had to tell; he'd rehearsed a hundred lead-ins. Most of them started with telling Charlie who he was, because he deserved to know his own name, if nothing else, to know that he really wasn't a killer, had never done anything wrong at all until he was forced to. If Charlie didn't start to remember things with that prompting, he'd be bound to ask Don how he knew all of this, and then he would have to answer. He wouldn't have a choice anymore. Like running toward a firing gun--as soon as you broke cover there were no more decisions to be made, it just happened. And then it would be over, and...
And then it would be over. That was all. This would all be over, like breaking a spell in a fairy tale. Charlie would know the truth, would know what Don had done to him, and that would be the end of this. Don couldn't plan for that blank space, and none of the half-imagined scenarios from before fit: Charlie didn't need to be rushed to a hospital, and didn't know where home was, let alone want to go there or not.
Don looked over at Charlie, and Charlie had finally stopped watching the snow. It was dusted over his hair and his shoulders, but Charlie was standing there watching Don.
"How's your leg?"
It sounded strange out here, in the open, Charlie's voice getting swallowed up in the snow and the trees. The road wasn't even visible from here, though Don could hear the cars going by.
Don shrugged. "Not bad."
It wasn't; he'd been practicing not limping, as he paced, and the leg was holding up. It was a superficial wound--already, it itched nearly as much as it hurt.
"It's started healing. It'll just take some time."
"You should have had stitches, shouldn't you?" Charlie's eyes lowered to follow Don's leg as Don moved closer.
"Probably," Don said.
Charlie was frowning, worried more about a gash on Don's leg than the fact that he didn't know his own name. Don shoved down the guilt. Not now, not by the side of the road.
"By the time we found a hospital they'd just have bandaged it anyway."
Charlie hooked his fingers into the hip pocket of Don's jeans, anchoring them together, but Don could feel how cold Charlie was through the cloth. He was shivering a little, his ears bright pink, but he barely seemed to notice it. Don tugged Charlie's hands from his pockets, took them between his and blew on his fingers.
"Come on," he said, when Charlie finally looked up at him. "We've got a way to go yet."
They stopped again, though, at the Welcome Center near the Illinois border for more coffee and, once Charlie caught sight of the gift shop, sweatshirts and maps and ice cream sandwiches and a book of number puzzles. Don hesitated in front of a rack of postcards, but Charlie was already wandering off, and Don followed him without a backward glance.
Charlie changed into his new sweatshirt--gray, with a line-drawing of the Chicago skyline in black--in the car before they even left the parking lot, and then opened the book of puzzles. He made little, "ha!" noises and turned the pages like he was reading a children's book. Don just focused on driving.
At last they stopped on the north side of Chicago for dinner in another diner, with a little fiber-optic Christmas tree on the counter and some ragged garland hung up that had obviously been packed away and brought out year after year for at least a couple of decades. Charlie took great delight in ordering from a menu.
Afterward, Don checked over the car carefully in the parking lot. The light was already failing, street lights coming on, as he jammed Charlie's blanket back into the duffle bag and gathered up their assorted purchases and yesterday's doggie bag. Don opened the trunk--it would be just their luck if it held a dead body or kilo bags of heroin--but there was nothing in it but flares and jumper cables, a gas can and a blanket.
Charlie stood and watched all of this, still frowning slightly, but Don just said, "Hop in," and Charlie did. He only drove a few blocks, until he found the right parking space and pulled in, half-blocking a hydrant. It would be towed by morning, if not before.
"All right," Don said. "Everybody out."
Charlie said, "Oh," and then patted the dashboard, as though saying goodbye.
He looked back once, when they'd reached the end of the block, and then they turned the corner and the car was out of sight, one more tie between them and Williamson snapped. They were only two blocks from an El stop. When they got to it, it was Charlie who hesitated, looking from the stairs to Don's leg. Don shook his head and started up, and Charlie followed, footsteps ringing out hollowly. Don handed him some singles and turned him toward a machine to buy his own pass, and Charlie was grinning triumphantly when they hit the turnstiles at the same time.
They were lucky, and didn't have to wait long for a southbound train. It was warm inside, nearly empty. Don pushed Charlie into the seat by the window, stretching his leg out into the empty aisle. Charlie sat peering out at the darkness, or looked around at the handful of people who got on the train. After a while he dug into a shopping bag and pulled out his book of puzzles, frowning silently down at it in such obvious imitation of the woman sitting three rows away with a book that Don had to smile.
He tugged on Charlie's arm when they had to change trains, and again when their stop was approaching. He'd decided on a south side neighborhood--one where nobody would ask for ID or anything but cash for a room, but not too close to where Dre had been operating when Don last saw him, all of a month and a half before. It felt like years.
Don stopped on the platform, catching Charlie's arm to keep him from trotting off alone into the dark, and scouted the neighborhood from the height of the El. He spotted a likely-looking motel sign and turned Charlie toward the stairs.
"Not much farther," he said. "You can sleep in a bed for a change."
"Uh-huh," Charlie said, glancing sideways at him between streetlights with the same knowing look that he'd had looking up at Don from his knees that morning.
Don looked away. Not much farther; once they were safely in a room, Don could tell Charlie. He'd have no more reasons to delay, and if Charlie bolted afterward, Don knew the ground better than he did. He'd have good odds of finding Charlie before anything worse did.
The motel was right where Don had thought, shabby but decent. The clerk methodically checked Don's money for counterfeit, then slid a key across the counter with a mechanical, "Merry Christmas."
Don nodded slightly and grabbed the key. He was in the process of turning away, his eyes on Charlie's face, as Charlie said absently, "Happy Hanukkah."
If the clerk said anything to that, Don didn't hear it. All he could make out was the rushing sound that usually intervened between his hearing and gunfire, his heart racing a mile a minute as a smile dawned on Charlie's face.
"Tonight's the first night of Hanukkah," Charlie said brightly, and Don squeezed the room key hard against his palm and turned away, out of the motel office, into the cold dark night.
Charlie was behind him; in the crisp air Don could hear his quick footsteps, nearly running to keep up as he said, "I know--Don, I know how to calculate the dates of Hanukkah! And--and Passover, too--and Easter, but that's just easy to get from Passover."
"Yeah," Don said, dazed, into Charlie's pause.
Charlie had remembered Hanukkah--remembered math for Hanukkah. Not anything else. But he was bound to start remembering more things soon; Don had to tell him the truth before the point became moot.
"It's only once every forty years or so that Christmas and Hanukkah coincide this way," Charlie rattled on, as Don glanced down at their key and started counting off the rooms they passed. "The first day of Hanukkah this year is actually the twenty-sixth, but in the Jewish calendar the days start at sundown, so--" Don glanced over to see Charlie looking around at the darkness. "I guess it started a couple of hours ago now."
Don nodded and stopped walking at room 8, fitting the key into the lock with only a little fumbling. He switched the light on as he stepped inside and moved to drop the duffle bag on the nearer bed. He heard Charlie step inside behind him, letting the heavy door slam.
The beds had typical polyester spreads in a green-and-purple floral pattern. The carpet was beige, threadbare. There was a TV set visibly bolted down, and a generic landscape painting on the wall above it. Don turned to take in the single curtained window, with a table slightly off-center in front of it and two chairs, and finally realized that Charlie was still standing just inside the door, the brightness of his realization all gone off his face as he looked around the room.
It was the first time Charlie had been shut inside a room like this since they'd escaped. Don looked around again, trying to see it from Charlie's point of view--the room wasn't as big as the ones where they'd been kept, and the furniture made it seem even smaller. Even the bathroom door was closed, seeming to shut off a possible bolt hole rather than offering the possibility of privacy. For a moment Don felt a little of Charlie's claustrophobia. He crossed the space between them, taking the bags from Charlie's hands and setting them on the table.
"You want to go back outside?" he asked quietly.
Charlie looked up at him sharply, questioningly. Don could see the moment when he realized that Don knew what was bothering him; he blushed faintly and looked away.
"I'm fine," he said. "It's... just a motel room, right? Real bed and everything. Should be nice."
Don set a hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Hey," he said. "It's okay. I'd prop the door open if it weren't freezing outside."
Charlie smiled a little and shrugged stiffly, and Don let go, moving away as far as the window. As little as he liked the idea of anybody being able to look in, Charlie needed something. He pulled the curtains back with a rattle, and Charlie turned toward the sound, relief breaking suddenly over his face at the sight of the darkness and the parking lot just outside, blurry through the condensation on the glass.
Don stepped back, taking away the nearer chair to leave more open space by the window, and Charlie shot him a smile and moved up to stand staring out through the glass. For the first time all day Don realized that Charlie didn't give a damn what was outside as long as he could look outside.
Don quietly locked the door and put the chain on, but Charlie was absorbed in staring out the window. Don slipped away to the bathroom, shutting the door silently behind him. The smallness of the room didn't bother him, but having a barrier between him and Charlie still did. Don forced himself not to rush back out, washing his hands thoroughly and then checking the bandages on his leg. Everything looked all right, though, and he knew he shouldn't mess with it more than he had to. He was just killing time now, trying to avoid going back out to Charlie. This was it. This was the time.
Don took a deep breath and repeated the words over in his head. Your name is Charles Eppes, you are Dr. Charles Eppes. One sentence, one step, and it was all downhill from there. Like jumping off a cliff. Don hesitated a second longer with his hand on the doorknob, then opened it and stepped out.
Charlie was still standing by the window, but he looked over his shoulder at Don as soon as Don stepped through the door. Don opened his mouth, but couldn't say a word to the waiting darkness of Charlie's eyes. Charlie looked back out the window and said, "We should have candles in the window."
Don shut his mouth and swallowed.
"For Hanukkah," he said, crossing the space between him and Charlie one slow step at a time, navigating around the beds and table and chairs.
Charlie nodded. "A menorah," he said slowly, like he was sounding the word out. "You use one candle to light the others, one more each night, and there are prayers you say before you light them."
Practically the only Hebrew either of them still knew. How many years had they spent chanting out the words, standing at the front window, trying to keep still and be patient with the promise of food and presents awaiting them? He could remember Charlie's face, wide-eyed and solemn, bright in the light of the flame on the even-numbered nights when he was allowed to light the menorah.
Don moved closer. There was a little squeaking noise from the window; Charlie was drawing in the condensation. Drawing candles, Don realized--a series of narrow rectangles, all scrupulously identical, each with a little fingerprint-wick at the top.
"Do you remember the prayers?" Don asked.
Charlie's finger faltered in its path, making a blot in the smooth line of the sixth candle. Don shifted a step to see Charlie's face properly. He was frowning at the window, at his finger, which was moving steadily again.
"No," he finally said. "Almost. It's--it's like it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't--"
He yanked his hand back abruptly from the window, and Don could see it shaking before it closed into a fist, and Charlie pressed it against his own stomach. Don reached over his shoulder and traced out the last candle for him.
Don knew the prayers perfectly well. He'd said them with his family nearly every year of his life. There had been one year at Quantico; he'd asked Terry to join him, feeling weirdly shy. Praying in front of her had been somehow more intimate than having sex with her, and he didn't even really believe it, wasn't even sure he cared one way or the other. A few years later it had been a hotel room and Coop, and he'd come within an eyelash of skipping it; if Coop had looked skeptical, or laughed... But he'd sat still, waiting, and Don had taken a breath and said the blessings as fast as he could. He'd never skipped a year, not knowingly, and he'd said the blessings with Charlie there ever since Charlie was born, and he'd been every kind of naked he could think of with Charlie in the last six weeks.
Charlie wanted to know, deserved to know, deserved the mitzvah if anyone did. A fragment of the translation he'd long since memorized drifted across Don's brain: "Who has kept us in life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season." It had to be more than half a miracle that they'd made it this far, and that was worth a prayer if anything was, but all the words he should be saying--all the things he knew right now that Charlie didn't, you are Dr. Charles Eppes--caught in his throat, and Don didn't say a word.
His hand dropped from the window, his arm curling around Charlie, and Charlie leaned back against him, looking out the window. Don could feel him relaxing, and eventually his head fell back against Don's shoulder. Charlie raised one steady hand to the window, drawing in a flame on the wick of the rightmost candle. When he'd done that, Charlie turned under Don's arm, turning his back on the window, looking up at Don and smiling.
Don was looking down at him with the same frozen, anxious look that he'd been wearing on and off all day, his lips parted like he was, once again, about to say something. Whatever it was, Charlie suspected neither of them wanted to hear it. Don licked his lips and took a breath, and Charlie set his hands on Don's shoulders, holding him still. Don stood frozen, his shoulders hard under Charlie's hands.
Charlie said, "I didn't get you a present."
His voice came out low and husky, and his lips nearly touched Don's as he spoke.
"Yeah," Don said, his eyes fixed on Charlie's, almost too close to focus on, a little wide. He was breathing fast against Charlie's lips. "I didn't--"
Charlie kissed him, cutting him off, and Don's lips kept moving, dragging against Charlie's long enough for it to turn into a real kiss, Charlie's mouth open against his, his tongue slipping into Don's mouth. Charlie held onto the back of Don's neck with one hand, holding him down, but Don didn't pull away. He didn't move at all. Charlie tilted his head back, and Don took a sudden step away, leaving Charlie off-balance. He shook his head, and his eyes looked wild as he stared around the room.
He was shifting his weight to take a step, his eyes on the door, and Charlie lunged across the space between them, almost snarling, "Shut up."
It felt scared and desperate in his throat, but it came out almost savage, and Don fell back a step before him. Don's eyes were wide, startled, his mouth opening, and Charlie shook his head quickly; he hadn't meant it that way. He reached up to touch Don's cheek and found his own hand shaking, his fingers only steadying when they rested against Don's skin.
"Shh," he said, and kissed Don again, lightly this time, an invitation against Don's already-parted lips.
Don grabbed his arms and pushed him back roughly, turning his face to the side and holding on, holding Charlie at arm's length.
"Charlie," he said, and his voice was breathless but oddly flat, mechanical, rehearsed, "Don't. I have to--"
"Please," Charlie whispered, and this time it sounded the way it felt, hollow and desperate.
Please don't tell me you're leaving, don't tell me you're a real person with a real life waiting for you out here, please don't tell me I'm safe and I can go wherever I want, please don't send me to the cops, please don't leave, please let me stay. Just one word, with Don's hands still clenched hard around his biceps, but Don flinched as though Charlie had hit him. He gave Charlie a brief hunted glance and looked away again.
"I'm alive," Charlie whispered, because the argument had worked once before. He twisted his right arm and Don's grip slackened abruptly, as if he hadn't realized he was holding Charlie in place, allowing Charlie to set one hand flat on Don's chest. "And you're alive. And we can."
Don shook his head, still looking away, and Charlie let his thumb move in a slow arc over Don's t-shirt, feeling the expansion and contraction of each breath, the heat of Don's skin through the fabric, the shift of hair beneath it.
"I can't," Don said hoarsely, after what seemed like a long time, though it had only been a dozen rapid breaths pressed against Charlie's palm.
Charlie slid his hand up to Don's throat, the bare skin hot against his fingertips, prickling with stubble as Charlie's thumb traced the hard line of Don's jaw, pulse pounding under Charlie's fingers. Don turned his head, meeting Charlie's eyes, seeming to search for something.
Charlie stood very still, waiting--please, don't, please, not now, please--
Don's hand came up to cover Charlie's, tugging Charlie's fingers up to his face, to his mouth. Charlie traced Don's lower lip with his thumb, and when he tugged a little Don turned his head, meeting Charlie's eyes with a lost look. Charlie said, "Shh," again, and kissed him. This time Don let him in, sighing against Charlie's mouth as his lips parted, his hands finding their way to Charlie's back and finally, finally pulling him close.
Like a switch had flipped--current reversed--Don seemed suddenly to need this just as strongly as he had resisted it. His hands moved constantly, restlessly, over Charlie's back--not holding on, just trying to touch him everywhere at once. Don kissed him hungrily, sucking at Charlie's tongue, licking eagerly into his mouth as Charlie ground his hips against Don's. Don was hard, and Charlie smiled into their kiss. Whatever Don had been resisting, it had never been a question of whether Don wanted him.
Charlie broke his mouth from Don's with an effort. Don's mouth brushed across his jaw, settling on his throat, hot and soft and distracting, as Charlie looked over Don's shoulder, gauging the distance to the bed. They were nearly there; he pushed Don another step and Don fell back, pulling Charlie down on top of him. Charlie moved to straddle him, planting his knees in the mattress--real bed, ha--and sliding his hands into Don's hair, kissing him deep and slow while Don pushed up under him, thrusting his hips and making the whole bed bounce. Their teeth clashed roughly and Charlie shifted sideways, his hand running into something as he reached out to steady himself.
It was Don's duffle bag; he shoved it off the bed and it landed with a solid thump. Beneath him, Don went still, looking away from Charlie, toward the sound of impact. Charlie settled lower, kissing the corner of his mouth until Don turned back to him, licking into Don's mouth as he pushed Don's shirt up. Don wriggled out of it quickly, tossing it off the bed as Charlie knelt up to pull his own shirt off, and when Charlie unbuttoned his pants, Don did the same.
Charlie threw himself down to the bed beside Don as he unzipped his pants, and Don's eyes followed him, then skipped past. Don went still and Charlie turned his head, following Don's gaze to the wide-open window, the candles traced in the condensation and the parking lot beyond, where anyone could happen by and see them.
"Fuck," Charlie muttered, and rolled off the bed and onto his feet. He pulled the curtains shut carefully, not letting them brush against the window--mustn't disturb the candles--and leaving one narrow gap. To breathe through, he thought, though he knew perfectly well that the curtains wouldn't keep air in or out.
When he turned away from the window, Don was lying naked on the sheets, the bedspread shoved to the floor along with his pants. His cock was hard, blood-dark; there was sweat shining in the hollow of his throat. His legs were slightly parted, and Charlie's eyes were drawn irresistibly to the bandage around his thigh, still neat and white.
Charlie pushed his pants and boxers off and moved back to the bed, kneeling at the foot and crawling up until he could drop a kiss gently on the gauze, resting one hand on Don's thigh just below it. The muscle was hard under his hand, shivering with tension, and Charlie looked up at Don.
Don was watching him intently, breathing quickly through his mouth and looking almost pained. Charlie shifted his gaze to Don's cock and felt his own cock twitch in response, hunger singing through his veins. Charlie shifted forward a little, his eyes steady on Don's cock as he pressed his open mouth to the bare skin of Don's thigh, sucking slightly and pressing his tongue softly against the skin.
Don nearly growled, grabbing Charlie by the arm and hauling him up so they were face-to-face on their sides. Don kissed him hard, sucking roughly at Charlie's tongue when Charlie pushed it inside. Charlie smiled into the kiss, throwing his leg over Don's hip and tipping him onto his back so that Charlie was on top again. Charlie shifted lower, getting their cocks lined up and thrusting slowly and carefully, so they moved against each other just right. Don's eyelids flickered. He pushed up on his elbow and pulled Charlie down for a kiss, breaking his rhythm.
Charlie let Don hold him in place for a while, his hips jerking awkwardly, irresistibly, his cock and Don's rubbing together. Don jerked up beneath him as their mouths pressed together, mashing roughly, teeth clashing between gasps for breath. Charlie shifted his weight back onto his knees and reached down, setting one hand on Don's left thigh and pushing it out. Don twisted under him, and he was nearly on his side before Charlie realized he was trying to turn over.
"No," Charlie whispered, pushing him down flat, and Don looked up at him, almost frowning. Charlie shifted himself between Don's legs, letting his weight rest lower on Don, grinding their cocks together.
"Like this," he murmured, pushing up to kiss Don's mouth. "Right here."
Don's eyes closed as Charlie thrust against him, and Charlie caught Don's hand and pulled it down between them, lacing their fingers together so that their joined hands circled their cocks, pressing them together as they stroked. Don thrust up against him, biting his lip, his eyes still closed. Charlie twisted his grip a little and kissed Don when he could, breathless from the feeling of his cock against Don's, Don's hand around him and his hand on Don's.
He tried to move slowly, to remember to be careful of Don's bandage, but Don kept pushing faster, his mouth frantic under Charlie's, kissing him until every breath stung on his lips. They were moving roughly, wildly together, bouncing on the springy bed, every motion amplified. Don gasped suddenly, between one stroke and the next, and his hand tightened as his cock jerked, and Charlie felt him coming in spurts, hot and wet over Charlie's fingers.
He pulled Charlie down flat for a kiss, long and breathless, and when Don finally let him up to catch a breath, Charlie felt orgasm hit him like a wave, a wall, knocking his breath out. Don's hand was the only steady thing, stroking him as he shook, and afterward Don rolled him sideways again and tangled their legs together. Charlie slid his sticky hand to Don's hip, and hid his eyes from the light against Don's shoulder.
On the edge of the sleep he remembered the candles, one lit, seven waiting, and smiled. This was only the first night.
Don had to be careful, getting out of bed in the early light, to keep from waking Charlie. He had to be careful in the shower, to keep from getting his bandages too wet. Afterward his hands were shaking, and he had to be careful as he freshly bandaged his leg, shaved, and dressed, all without making too much noise. As long as he concentrated on one thing at a time, he could do what he needed to do.
He stood by the bed, looking down at Charlie, and thought only of what he was going to say right now, this minute. Don reached out and shook Charlie's shoulder--bare, warm under his hand, but he swallowed hard and remembered what he was about to say. Charlie blinked up at him sleepily, eyelashes barely parting.
"Don?"
"Hey," Don said, squeezing Charlie's shoulder. "I have to go run some errands, but I'll be back in an hour or two, all right?"
Charlie blinked. "Don't get shot this time," he mumbled, and Don smiled.
"I won't," he said.
Charlie's hand closed on his wrist, fingertips digging in. "Come back?"
"I will," Don said. "I'll come back. Just go back to sleep, okay?"
Charlie nodded, but his hand stayed tight on Don's wrist. His eyes closed again, and he turned his face down into the pillow, but his grip didn't loosen until Don pried Charlie's fingers free. His hand tightened into a fist when Don let it go, tucked under the pillow. Don stood staring down at Charlie for a minute longer, and then turned around and walked out, locking the door and putting up the Do Not Disturb sign as he went.
It was bright and cold outside, eight in the morning, and the wind added a sharpness to the steady throb of his right leg. Don jammed his hands into his pockets and walked fast back to the El stop, joining a small crowd on the platform, day-after-Christmas shoppers making an early start. The wind stung his eyes, and Don blinked rapidly, staring back at the motel sign marking the place where Charlie slept. He forced himself to keep scanning the people around him, watching for threats, watching for people he might have met before. He didn't spot any, but he kept watching--kept concentrating on watching--even after he was on the train.
When he got off the train he had to think about how to get to the post office, and about everything he needed to do. He had to rehearse the lock combination over and over again. He swung open the door of the PO box he'd rented months before and simply stared for a moment at the small tidy stack of padded envelopes, then pulled them out one by one.
The top one held a set of car keys, and he took them from the envelope and tucked them into his coat pocket, for all the good they were likely to do after a month and a half. The next envelope, mailed a week before the keys, held an assortment of IDs he hadn't needed yet. Don left that envelope sealed, tucking it inside his coat, and then, after a hesitation, reached out and took the last envelope. It was thick and bulky, and folded neatly into two halves when he lifted it.
He'd mailed this one nearly two months ago; it held his wallet--Don Eppes's wallet--and Charlie's. Don wavered for a second, holding it in his hand, and then looked around. The post office was nearly deserted, and the handful of people around weren't stopping at the wall of mailboxes, moving quickly to the vending machines or the counters. Don ripped open the envelope and reached in, pulling out Charlie's worn leather wallet, a twenty-fifth birthday gift from their parents. Before that Charlie had been using some nylon thing with a video game character on it. The wallet flipped open easily in his hand, and Charlie was staring up at him, smiling uncertainly from a CalSci ID, labeled FACULTY right under his name.
He wouldn't even have to say anything; he could just toss the wallet to Charlie, let him find everything. There was a photo tucked into the billfold, the four of them, taken months before their mother died, before the doctors gave up hope, before Charlie disappeared into the garage. Charlie wouldn't have any trouble recognizing Don in the picture, or realizing what the photo represented. If he really wanted to spell things out, he could lay his own wallet next to Charlie's, let him see the names, the birthdates. Charlie might not want to believe it if Don just told him, but the wallets were hard evidence, verifiable facts.
Don shoved Charlie's wallet back into the envelope, crumpling it between his hands and leaning his forehead against the mailboxes, finally letting himself feel the sick, shaky horror that had been threatening since he woke up. He hadn't been able to say a goddamn word last night--or maybe he had been able, but he hadn't done it. It didn't make a difference; he'd been able to fuck, and that was what would matter, when he did tell. If there had ever been any defense, any explanation, for what he was doing, it had gone up in the smoke of that house in Wisconsin. Now he had nothing.
Don stuffed the envelope into his coat with the other--fakes and the real thing, all tucked away together--and slammed his mailbox shut, giving the lock a twirl. There was no helping it; he'd done it, and he still had to tell Charlie the truth, the sooner the better. If Charlie could never forgive what he'd done...
Maybe that would make it better for Charlie somehow. They'd never be brothers again like they'd been before, and they couldn't go on like this. He had to tell Charlie the truth, and if Charlie was furious afterward, maybe that would make everything else a little easier. Maybe Charlie telling him to fuck off and die would be easier than Charlie asking him how he could do such a thing and expecting him to answer.
And maybe he and Charlie would have been better off if he had killed them both the very first day; but there was no taking any of it back now. Don walked out into the cold sunshine, heading quickly down the block, trying to shove the thought of Charlie--the memory of him last night, his hands and his mouth and every inch of him, the cold anticipation of what had to come next--to the back of his mind.
Three blocks later, Don stopped short. The Honda was parked in the middle of a block, just where he'd left it. It had picked up a few new dents and paint scrapes, the left rear tire was perilously low, and there were crusts of frozen snow on the bumpers and windows, but the car was inexplicably exactly where he'd left it, when he thought he'd be back in a day or two with Charlie in tow.
Don stood staring until someone bumped into him, and then he turned his head, blindly muttering, "Sorry."
He started across the street without looking, dodging traffic until he was standing beside the car. He dropped the keys the first time he tried to unlock the door, and had to hold one hand to his chest to steady the envelopes as he bent down, his right leg protesting sharply.
When he finally got it open, the car smelled exactly the same. He wouldn't have thought he remembered it, or that it even had any particular smell, but the faint stink of stale smoke and the artificial pine scent of the air freshener hit him hard. He was suddenly back on that drive across country, back when he'd thought he knew what he'd have to do, when he'd thought he could do this and only lose his career in the process. Don stood for a minute with the door open, breathing the cold city air, and then he got in and started it up. The envelopes under his coat pressed heavily against his chest as he put on his seatbelt, and Don reached in and took them out, stashing them together under the driver's seat.
He took a wrong turn, navigating back to the motel after he stopped to fill up the tire, but it was still only nine-thirty by the time he got there. He sat for a minute, looking at the window of their room, after he shut off the car. The condensation on the window had evaporated, taking Charlie's candles with it. The curtains were still parted an inch in the middle, showing him nothing from this angle. Don got out and went around to the trunk.
Charlie's backpack was lying there, packed, Don knew, with a few changes of clothes and Charlie's Gameboy. He had no idea where he could say he'd gotten them; maybe Charlie would take one look and remember. Maybe the sight of his own things would bring him back. Don stared at the backpack for a while, the cold wind cutting through him, and then he heard the door open.
He looked around the raised trunk, and Charlie was standing there in boxers and socks, peering at him through the six inches he'd opened the door. "Don?"
Don forced a smile and grabbed the bag.
"I got you some presents," he said, and Charlie's eyes lit up.
Don brought a wave of cold with him when he came inside, and Charlie retreated to the bed while Don locked the door. Charlie took a quick, reassuring glance toward the window as he pulled the still-warm covers around himself. The narrow line of daylight was still there, and Charlie breathed easy even as the lock slid home and the chain rattled into place. Don turned to face him, the backpack he'd brought from the car still dangling from one hand.
It was yellow and black, softly rounded by its contents, covered with interesting pockets and zippers and buckles. Don held it out toward him hesitantly, his face wavering between a smile and a frown, as though he wasn't sure Charlie would like it. As though he weren't the only person who'd ever given Charlie any kind of gift at all. Charlie reached out, catching a strap, and Don took a clumsy step after the bag before he let go.
It landed in Charlie's lap, oddly light--its contents weren't dense or hard-edged enough to be books or papers--but there was something strangely, intensely satisfying about having a backpack. It felt right. Charlie smiled up at Don even as his hands ran over the exterior, nylon fabric and plastic buckles and webbed straps. Don smiled unsteadily back, and Charlie ducked his head, focusing on his present.
He explored the outside pockets first. One held two mechanical pencils, a clicky pen, and three binder clips. The opposite one had something in it too, a pleasing symmetry.
Charlie's mouth fell slightly open at the sight of the shiny brown packet. Milk Chocolate M&Ms. Charlie took out the bag and held it cradled in his hands, feeling the candy shift inside, rattling quietly. He knew how it would smell when he opened it. He knew what the candy shell would taste like, giving way to chocolate. He knew--
"Statistically, thirteen percent of those are going to be red," Don said from above him.
Charlie looked up, openmouthed--how on Earth would Don know? Why did he even know himself?
Don shrugged, oddly diffident, and said, "I read that somewhere."
Charlie's eyes narrowed as he wracked his brain. This wasn't the first unexpected bit of mathematical knowledge Don had ever volunteered. "The same place you read about P vs. NP?"
Don bit his lip, looking oddly pained by Charlie's question, and didn't answer. Charlie had to look away, shoving the M&Ms back into their pocket, retreating from his inexplicable misstep.
He found the zipper for the main pocket and opened it, revealing the jackpot, bright folded cloth. Charlie reached in to pull out whatever was on top--soft worn flannel, striped, and then his hand clenched on the cloth as he was swamped with vertigo. He felt cold--his heart racing, adrenaline electric and bitter in his mouth--and panicked--there was something in that bag, something awful--
He heard his name, from a long way off, and jerked backward as a hand closed tight around his wrist. Don was on his knees beside the bed, looking up at Charlie, eyes wide, his face utterly drained of color. Charlie let go of the shirt and reached for him, drowning the smell that clung to the fabric with the scent of Don's skin, motel soap and the familiar unwashed shirt. His coat was cold against Charlie's cheek, but Don was warm beneath it.
Charlie could feel himself shaking against Don's steadiness as the moment passed. The room stopped tilting, and his heart slowed, and of course there was nothing bad in the bag; Don wouldn't give him anything bad.
Charlie let go of Don, straightening up, and Don let go of his wrist all at once. Charlie's cheeks felt hot, the skin painfully tight, and he didn't look at Don, keeping his eyes focused on the bag and hastily pulling out the contents. Two flannel shirts, a solid one beneath the striped, and a gray sweater. Jeans and cargo pants, boxers, socks. At the bottom, wrapped in a t-shirt, something small and hard.
Charlie shook out the shirt, and realized as he tugged it away that there was a pi on the front in white. He looked up at Don, smiling shakily, to see Don still staring at him, still pale, as though he thought Charlie would freak out again or fall over and die at any second.
"Sorry," Charlie said, "I just--I don't know. I like it. Thanks."
I like it was stupid, massively inadequate to the feeling blooming in the pit of his belly, replacing that crazed cold burst with warmth and belonging. These clothes, folded up with some unknown laundry-smell clinging to them, worn and faded--these clothes were a real person's clothes, a person with a life and a past. Don was giving them to him just like Don had given him a name. Charlie smiled for real, groping for more words, but Don just went on looking up at him, searching his face for something.
After a moment he winced and looked away, and Charlie looked back down at the things in his hands, feeling as if Don had slapped him. He'd been too excited--too randomly, crazily frightened to begin with--he was too broken, too far from being a regular person, the kind Don would want to keep around.
Charlie laid down the pi shirt gently on top of the other clothes, blinking at the thing in his left hand, the thing that had been so carefully wrapped in the shirt, a present within presents. It was shiny, silvery plastic, and fit comfortably in his hand. It said Nintendo in slightly raised letters. Charlie brushed his thumb over it and then flipped the lid up, holding the--DS, for dual-screen, a Nintendo DS; had he had a toy like this in his forgotten past?--in both hands. His left thumb pressed the power button automatically. The screens lit, and Don sat down on the bed. Charlie's head jerked up, watching him, but Don stayed still, staring toward the window, his profile revealing nothing to Charlie except that his eyelashes were long and dark, and the color was returning to his cheek.
Charlie closed the DS without looking down at it and stuffed it back into his backpack along with the clothes. Don didn't move at the sound, didn't react at all when Charlie set the backpack on the floor, or at the sound of Charlie unzipping the side pocket and fishing out the M&Ms, or when Charlie flipped back the covers from his lap. He caught his breath when Charlie touched his arm, and met his eyes warily.
"Charlie?" he said, uncertainly, as if Charlie might not answer to his own name.
"Yeah," Charlie said, and tugged on Don's arm. "Come here."
Instant resistance flashed in Don's eyes, quick as a reflex; someday Charlie was going to make that go away. Someday Don was going to believe he wanted what he wanted. For now, though...
Charlie held up the M&Ms in his other hand. "Come on, I need an assistant for a statistical study. Take your coat off, lie down."
Don looked away again, rubbing a hand through his hair, rearranging the wildness of it. But he bent over and untied his boots, kicking them off as Charlie curled up on the bed, his head on the pillow they'd shared while they slept. Don tossed his coat onto a chair and crawled up the bed, lying down with a foot of space between him and Charlie, his whole body straight and still.
Charlie tore open the packet and dumped the candies onto the bed between them--but Don was heavier, and they all slid down to pool against his side.
"Hold still," Charlie murmured, herding the candies into color groupings, his fingers brushing against Don's chest. Don hardly even seemed to breathe, and Charlie could feel the warmth of his skin through his t-shirt. By the time he'd double-checked his counts, that warmth had been transmitted to the candy. The smell of sugar and chocolate rose up between them, and the sheets were starting to be marked with bright candy-colored smears.
When Charlie finally looked up to Don's face, he was watching Charlie with a strange intensity. Charlie thought suddenly of the first time he'd seen Don; he'd had that same look on his face, hungry and focused. Charlie swallowed hard. "Seventeen point six percent red," he said softly. "That's an anomaly."
Don blinked, and Charlie felt as much as saw the sudden lessening of tension in him. His voice was perfectly even as he said, "You're an anomaly," but there was a smile lurking in his eyes.
Charlie grinned, feeling like he'd escaped some unspeakable danger, like they both had. For several seconds he couldn't think of what to say to express it; Don wasn't quite smiling yet, and might not if Charlie said the wrong thing now.
"Well, you're an irreproducible result."
It was the right thing. Don's mouth curved into a smile. "You going to eat your candy, genius? Because it's going to melt all over the bed in another minute."
Charlie grinned and scooped up half the M&Ms, obliterating the color-sorted groupings, and crammed the whole handful into his mouth. He crunched through the candy coatings to a mouthful of gooey chocolate, closing his eyes in bliss as his mouth flooded with saliva.
Chocolate. The taste and smell and feel were so familiar, so correct--but he couldn't remember ever eating M&Ms before. He hadn't even known he wanted them until Don gave them to him, but they were exactly the right thing.
He clamped a hand over his mouth as he swallowed and opened his eyes. Don was grinning at him, his eyes as warm and sweet as a whole mouthful of chocolate. Don scooped up more candy and held it out to him, and Charlie took it, but more was just more, not better, nothing like the sheer narcotic joy of the first bite.
Charlie opened his mouth to tell Don he should have some, but even as he thought it Don's hand came up, holding more candy.
"Here," Don said, extending his hand to Charlie's mouth.
Charlie parted his lips wider, and Don shook the sticky half-melted candy into his mouth. It was entirely an accident that Charlie's tongue, flicking out, grazed the skin of Don's palm, but Don didn't pull away. The salt tang of sweat flavored the chocolate, tugging Charlie's thoughts briefly in another direction--but no, not now, not after everything else that had happened this morning. Having Don back in bed with him was more than enough.
Charlie looked down as Don lowered his hand; there was more candy on the bed, trapped under Don's side. Don reached for it, but only pushed it further down.
"Lie back," Charlie said, and Don shifted onto his back as Charlie scooted closer, gathering up the last of the M&M's off the sheets. Charlie held his hand to Don's mouth, and Don's lips parted, accepting the candy from Charlie's fingers with a startled smile.
The smile lingered even after the chocolate was gone, and Charlie brushed his thumb over the wrinkles beside Don's eye, leaving a blue and orange candy smear. Charlie squirmed closer, right up against Don, to lick it away. Don went very still.
"Sorry," Charlie breathed against his cheek. "Don't go, I'm tired, you didn't get much sleep."
Don didn't move away, and Charlie draped himself over Don, hooking one leg over Don's thigh and resting his head on Don's chest. As soon as he laid his head down exhaustion settled over him, heavier than any blanket, his heartbeat a thumping ache that contrasted strangely with the sweetness of chocolate on his tongue.
Charlie raised one weighted arm and tugged the blankets over them, kissing Don's throat. They could sleep again, and start over later, and if they had to they could just keep doing it over until they got it right. "Just go back to sleep," he murmured. "Okay?"
Don nodded a little, and slowly, slowly, relaxed. Charlie wanted to raise his head to see if Don was sleeping, but his own eyes were already closed, so Charlie decided to trust him.
Charlie had meant it when he said he was tired. He spent nearly all of the next twenty-four hours in bed, sleeping or playing his DS. Don pried him out once, got him to shower and go out for pizza and a spin through the nearest drug store, dressed in his new (old) clothes. Charlie smiled down at his own sweater, baggier than it should have been, like it was something wonderful, like it hadn't flung him into a panic attack a few hours before.
Don sat and watched him sleeping later, still in his clothes, his cheek pressed to his sleeve, nose buried in the crook of his elbow. He had to be getting that same old smell on every breath, but he didn't seem to be dreaming. Still, his body stayed curled tight, the angle of his shoulder stark, the familiar small frown still twisting his eyebrows.
He'd nearly remembered that morning, and Don didn't think he'd ever seen anything as terrifying. It hadn't been--only--the imminence of getting caught; Charlie had been terrified, had looked like remembering hurt. Don had been no more able to stand and watch than he could have if Charlie had been drowning in front of him.
He tried to steel himself as he sat there, watching Charlie sleep. He was going to have to watch. Next time, or the time after, Charlie wouldn't be pulled back by a word or a touch. There was nothing really wrong with Charlie's brain, and whether Don told him the truth or not, Charlie was going to remember. The longer Don let it go, the worse it would be when the time came.
But Don couldn't wake Charlie up to hurt him, even if it was for the best, and left to his own devices Charlie slept until after dark. He woke up and crawled out of bed, his hair wild and his eyes still dazed with sleep. He took a box of birthday candles from the drug store bag and set up eight of them in a row, staring at them for a moment before shaking his head slightly; he still didn't remember the words. He lit two candles and watched them burn down to pools of bright blue wax. The flames reflected in Charlie's eyes as tiny sparks, and Don didn't say anything before the lights went out.
He watched Charlie eat leftover pizza, watched him crawl back into bed with his Gameboy, and when Charlie said, "Hey, come here," he went.
Don let Charlie pull him down, let Charlie arrange him like a pillow, lay still and quiet until he fell asleep himself, drifting in and out until it was light outside and Charlie was drooling on his shoulder, numbing his whole arm. A new day. He had to tell today.
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