At some point, Charlie woke up in daylight. He looked over toward the window to find the curtains half-open, sunlight shining through. Don was sitting in one of the chairs with his feet propped on the end of the bed, drinking coffee and watching him.
Charlie thought blearily that that had to be pretty boring, and rummaged around in the bed until he found the DS under his pillow.
"Wanna play?" Charlie mumbled, sitting up and holding it out. "Second slot's free."
When he started it up, there had been a saved game in the first slot, with only a entered for a name. Charlie had taken the third slot and labeled it c, not wanting either to continue someone else's game or to delete it, wondering vaguely where Don had gotten these presents.
Don stared at him for a second, then leaned forward and took it from Charlie's hand.
"Thanks," he said, and Charlie nodded and fell back onto his pillow.
He opened his eyes again on Don, sitting on the same chair, but hunched over now with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the game. He recognized the music; Don was approaching the first boss. The light through the window had changed, and for the first time in what seemed like days, Charlie felt awake.
He got up and went around to stand behind Don's shoulder, peering down at the screen.
"Hey," he said. "You should--"
"I got it," Don said, hunching further over the game, blocking his view.
Charlie smiled at the back of his head. He'd only been going to suggest that Don take a break when he finished the level; it was going on three in the afternoon.
Charlie said, "Okay," and grabbed a piece of pizza from the box precariously balanced on the TV, munching on it as he picked up his backpack and rummaged through it for fresh clothes. He tracked Don's progress through the game with half an ear--it wasn't going well. He probably hadn't gathered enough gear before going to the boss. Charlie knew Don would figure it out eventually, though.
Charlie finished his slice of pizza, washed it down with water from the bathroom sink, and then went to take a shower. It was a novel experience, shutting himself all alone in a little room to shower; even though there was no one else around, it was still reassuring to know that Don was just outside. The water stayed hot, but Charlie rushed through washing up and got out. He yanked his clothes on, damp in the steam, and opened the door again so he could hear the sound of Don playing. He was approaching the boss again; he must have died while Charlie was in the shower and gone back to the save point.
Charlie shaved with mostly-steady hands, and brushed his teeth while pressing a piece of toilet paper to a spot just under his ear. His hair was dripping down his neck, turning cool in the colder air from outside the bathroom, and Charlie shivered and dried it some more before he left the bathroom.
Don was scowling down at the DS, but seemed to know Charlie was there; he said, "Hey," in an abstracted tone, seeming about to follow it up with something else, and then his whole body jerked as he began to fight. Charlie smiled and looked around for something else to do while Don was occupied. His eye fell on the remote for the TV, and he went over and picked it up, sitting down with the bags on the unused bed and turning the TV on.
He watched a few minutes of some kind of kids' movie about a mouse, then started changing channels, cycling through soap operas--how did he know they were soap operas? But he did, they were--and a few sports channels before stopping on a radar map of the United States. He barely heard what the man standing in front of the map said, watching the data loop and change, observation and prediction all in bright colors and smooth motions--all done with computers, and Charlie's fingers itched for that kind of power, a half-dozen problems springing up in his mind, one job after another that he could calculate so smoothly if he only had--
Charlie caught himself and shook his head, glancing over at Don. No more jobs, not ever again. Charlie flipped through a few more channels--cartoons, a few channels in foreign languages, cartoons in a foreign language--before he hit a busy screen, tickers and graphics around the central image of a burning building, and a calm voice saying, "Arson investigators still decline to speculate on the motive..."
The banner said CHRISTMAS EVE ATTACK and the remote fell from Charlie's hand as he stared at the screen. He could hear Don's game--Don was in trouble, dying over there, but Charlie couldn't speak or move or look. His heart was pounding. He could only make out snatches of what the voice on the TV was saying.
Working to identify and near exterior doors and trying to escape and the image changed to a row of three grainy photographs, three rectangles aligned across the screen: a young woman with brown eyes and straight black bangs, a tired-looking man with grey hair and a mustache, and Randy, sneering into the camera.
The screen went blank, replaced by Don standing in front of it, walking cautiously toward him and frowning. Charlie could still hear the forlorn sounds of the abandoned game, but Don was crouching in front of him, saying something Charlie couldn't make out.
They'd been near the doors; they'd lived long enough to try to escape the fire, breathed smoke and seared their lungs with superheated air, burned and burned until their bodies took three days to identify. Don backed away from him again, and Charlie gritted his teeth and tried to breathe--had Don been saying that? Breathe? He looked up, trying to look for Don, and felt suddenly dizzy and sick, pain striking through his belly, stopping his breath, speeding his racing heart. Charlie tried to stand and stumbled. He thought he would fall all the way to the floor, but Don was there somehow, easing him down to his knees and shoving a bucket in front of his face as he gagged.
Don's hand was on his head, holding him there--Don would push him down, he thought wildly, drown him in his own vomit. He tried to struggle, but his body wouldn't cooperate and Don held him tight, until Charlie finally caught a foul-smelling breath and registered that Don was running his fingers through Charlie's hair, murmuring, "Shh, shh, you're okay."
Charlie shook his head at that, and gagged again when he tried to take a deep breath, but there was nothing left to come out of him. He retched and coughed and shook in Don's hold, until Don finally took the bucket away and wiped his face with something rough and damp--the towel he'd left in the bathroom. Charlie still couldn't catch his breath, shivering violently, but this time the exhalation came out as something like a sob.
Don said, "Shh," again, and Charlie managed to push him away this time, falling clumsily back against one of the beds and wiping the back of his hand across his stupid stinging eyes.
"I'm n--" he said, and had to haul in another unsteady breath, and he could feel water on his face, could hardly see Don through the blur of his vision.
"I'm not sorry," he snarled, but the word came out on another sob, and he felt as much as saw Don move across the space between them, setting a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm not," Charlie repeated, but he could barely make out his own words, and the next thing out of his mouth was just a rising cry, muffled against Don's shoulder.
Don's shirt quickly became hot and wet under his face, but Charlie couldn't seem to stop, only occasionally raising his head to catch a cool breath. He kept trying to say I'm not sad, but the words never seemed to come out whole and intelligible. He wasn't, though, not sad; sickened and scared and angry, somehow, but it all translated into this shuddering leaking sobbing mess on the outside. His hands were cramping from holding so tightly to Don's shirt, and Don's hand smoothed over his back, up and down as steady as a clock, but Don didn't say a word.
After a long time, Charlie lifted his head to take a breath that came out as just another breath. He looked up toward the window; the light was getting gray and thin, but it was enough to make him realize his head was throbbing. He unclenched his fingers from Don's shirt and scooted carefully away, one leg going pins and needles as he did. He winced, rubbing awkwardly at his face--hot and damp--and didn't look at Don.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"It's okay," Don said, and his voice sounded rusty. He cleared his throat, and Charlie clenched his fist.
He felt scraped raw, emptied out. If Don told him it wasn't his fault, that he hadn't killed anyone, that he had nothing to be sorry for, he didn't know what he'd do. He didn't think he could cry any more, and his hand shook even closed in a fist.
But the silence stretched out, until Charlie finally did look up, only to find that Don was staring down at his own hands. He glanced up at Charlie and smiled a little and shook his head. Charlie frowned, but Don just pushed up to his feet and turned away.
Charlie watched him bend and pick up the bucket--the bathroom trash can, he realized, wincing as Don took it away. The bathroom sink turned on, and the toilet flushed, and then the water ran again, longer, while Charlie wiped his nose again on his shirt sleeve.
Don came back with a washcloth, offering it silently to Charlie, and while Charlie was wiping his face--it was cool, and felt good on his overheated skin--Don sank down to sit beside him, their shoulders pressed together. Charlie lowered the cloth, resting his arms on his knees as he twisted the cloth, and realized Don was sitting beside him in just the same posture, though his hands were still.
"I did the same thing," Don said quietly, into the silence. "The first time I killed someone."
Charlie looked over at him, startled. He didn't think Don had ever spoken to him about his life before this--it was hard sometimes to remember that Don had had a life before this. And Don wasn't saying it's not your fault. He was saying it happened to me.
"I was working with another guy. We got separated, I fell behind." Don's voice was steady, but his hands were clenched hard. His eyes were nearly closed, eyelashes hovering just above his cheek.
"I caught up and this guy was holding my--my partner at gunpoint. I yelled--I yelled at him to stop, and then I fired. I killed him. There was no choice to make. It was the right thing to do, and I saved my partner, and I wasn't sorry."
Charlie nodded, and Don's lips tightened, not really a smile.
"I went home that night and spent half of it on the bathroom floor."
"What did you--" Charlie said, and Don's eyes snapped open, like he'd forgotten Charlie was there. But the same sick roil was still there in his stomach--not gone, even if it was exhausted for now, and he had to know. "What did you do? How did you--"
Don gave him a small sad smile, his eyes tired and warm. "In the long run, I tried my hardest not to ever have to kill anybody again. In the short run, I went out and got drunk, and then I tried not to think about what I'd done until I could think about it without wanting to puke."
"Oh," Charlie said. He could try not to think, but he was tired of forgetting things.
"There's a bar a couple of blocks down the road," Don said, nudging Charlie's shoulder. "Come on."
Halfway through his second beer, Charlie propped his chin on his hand, squinted thoughtfully at Don across the remains of the nachos, and said, "Do you have a computer?"
Don smiled and took another sip. "Not with me, why?"
Charlie waved a hand, dismissing Don's answer, and Don could see relaxation creeping into the gesture. Charlie was already slouching more comfortably in his seat; his tolerance must have dropped off in the last six months. "Just--have you ever used one?"
There was something disturbingly wistful in Charlie's eyes. Don nodded slowly. "Not for the kind of stuff you probably would."
Charlie took another long swallow of his beer and then nodded. "I've been thinking--there must be a program to--"
Those were the last words Don understood, not because Charlie was slurring but because it dropped off so rapidly into math.
Charlie either didn't notice that he'd completely lost his audience, or didn't mind. Don kept drinking slowly, listening to Charlie's voice and watching his face--it wasn't really that different from the last month, Charlie doing math while Don sat and watched quietly. Only now Charlie was facing him, occasionally throwing in a sentence he could nod at; it was more than Charlie had talked to him all the time they'd been locked up together. And now the doors weren't locked from the outside, and now...
Don kept drinking. Not now, not like this, not in some stupid drunken blurt--or maybe, he thought, even as he shoved the thought of it down, maybe exactly like this, because how else would he ever manage to do it? This way would be bad, but there wasn't any way to do it well.
Charlie set his bottle down with a hollow sound, still talking, though he'd subsided to a mutter and was wetting his finger off the sweating bottle and writing on the table in water. Don got up and went to the bar, ordered two more and bummed a ballpoint pen off the bartender, along with a stack of napkins.
Charlie grinned up at Don when he came back, scooting closer to him and spreading out a few of the napkins to illustrate whatever he'd been talking about. Don obediently leaned in and watched Charlie draw, but he was distracted from the figures by Charlie's hands. Math looked like dancing from this angle, like something Charlie did with his body, not just his brain. A sport, and a spectator sport at that. Don grinned and drank his beer, glancing up at Charlie's face to find Charlie smiling widely at him, his eyes bright and his cheeks flushed.
After that Charlie talked more directly to Don, looking into his eyes, tracking his attention. Don recognized the tone of voice--this was Charlie at his day job, or even in the office, trying to make Don and his team understand how he'd broken their case for them. Teaching had to be some kind of instinct for Charlie, and all it took to dig it up was a few beers and a ballpoint pen. Don followed Charlie's math the best he could, in between going back and forth to the bar. He almost didn't notice how Charlie leaned closer to him with every successive drink, how Charlie's voice got low and slow, how Charlie looked up at Don through his eyelashes.
Charlie said, "Here, you try it," and Don took the pen from his hand--clumsily, their fingers brushing and tangling over it. He frowned down at a napkin and tried to reproduce the matrix Charlie had just explained to him with the numbers Charlie whispered in his ear. Don could feel Charlie's breath, and his fingers were tingling on the pen, his whole body feeling warm and loose and good.
When he glanced up, trying to think through the steps of the math problem, he realized the bartender was very carefully not looking toward their table. He took a quick glance around and realized a few of the bar's patrons were looking, and pocketed the pen.
"Come on," he whispered to Charlie. "Time to go."
Charlie smiled sunnily and didn't argue.
Don had been right about how drinking made things better; even walking down the sidewalk with the wind in his face, Charlie felt warm. His legs seemed to swing more easily as he walked--random walked, bumping into Don every few strides, which made Don laugh. He felt as though he'd been cut loose from something heavy, as though his whole body had been made of knots and they had all come untied. Now he was made of strings, sliding loosely against each other, summoning up friction-heat and singing here and there with stray vibrations.
"The universe is made of strings," he informed Don, when Don grabbed his arm and pulled him close. After a blinking instant Charlie realized they were on a street corner, traffic whizzing by in a directed stream of bright lights and shiny bumpers.
"Yeah?" Don said, holding on to Charlie's arm. "Not math?"
Charlie shook his head and had to take a staggering step to keep his balance, Don's hand holding him up. He paused, braced with his feet apart and one hand on Don's side, and shook his head again for the sheer novelty of the sensation.
"Described by math," he called out to Don, staring up at the spinning sky. "Made up of string."
"Oh," Don said, tugging Charlie into motion. Charlie held onto Don's coat as he made his unsteady way across the street; the pavement seemed to roll under his feet. "Yeah, obviously. String."
"Everything is connected," Charlie explained. "Things seem to be far apart but really they're attached by these strings. Really they're not even different things, just opposite ends of the same really big thing. You touch one thing and another thing feels it, one thing moves and everything moves."
"Huh," Don said, but Charlie thought Don understood him a little; as much as he understood himself, anyway.
"String theory," Charlie said, abruptly remembering the name. "Physics. Everything is made of string."
Don didn't say anything this time, but pushed Charlie up against a wall; Charlie reached for him eagerly, his lazy heart speeding up and his blood gathering in his dick, but Don stepped away. He was unlocking the door, Charlie realized when he looked around. They were back at the motel. Even better.
Charlie stumbled into the warmth of the room as soon as Don got the door open, and nearly fell across the bed in the dark, giggling and dizzy. He heard Don lock the door and then a light came on. Charlie bounced gently on the bed, smiling up at him, and said, "Hey, come here."
Don leaned against the door, watching him and smiling, his eyes bright and the skin at the corners wrinkling in a way that made Charlie want to lick him there and everywhere. "Didn't you just say we're made of string? Aren't we really already in the same place?"
Charlie grinned. "Only one way to tell."
He yanked his coat open and slid his hand into his jeans without unbuttoning them. The coldness of his own hand on his cock made him jump, but Don's gaze was riveted. Charlie watched the front of Don's jeans, framed in his open coat. He curled his hand around his own warm flesh, stroking himself clumsily. It felt good--ridiculously good, lazy and slow and hot, strings twisting together into something more. His eyes drifted shut and he moaned at his own touch, and the sound tingled on his lips, making him want to kiss, lick, taste, reminding him about Don, and his experiment.
He opened his eyes and discovered empirical evidence of the connectedness of all things: Don was leaning against the door, hard in his jeans, his cheeks flushed.
"C'mere," Charlie repeated, and Don didn't argue this time.
He knelt between Charlie's feet, his hands settling on Charlie's thighs as he leaned in, his mouth touching down warm and wet on the back of Charlie's wrist, just above his jeans. Charlie tried to tell him how good it felt--how a string ran from his wrist to his cock, and Don's mouth touched everything--but it came out a groan, his hips jerking toward Don's mouth. He pulled his hand free, and Don's mouth slid down his skin to the tip of his finger.
Don looked up at him and took Charlie's finger into his mouth, sucking softly, his teeth scraping just a little, his lips sliding wetly over Charlie's skin. Charlie's cock throbbed with every touch of Don's tongue. He was nodding frantically, dizzily, though there was no question in Don's eyes, just the hot dark shine of certainty. Charlie tried to unbutton his own jeans, left-handed, but Don's teeth closed lightly on the base of his finger, and Don's hand batted his away from his fly.
Don let go of Charlie's finger and yanked Charlie closer to the edge of the bed, his legs splaying wildly, feet floating free, his ass teetering on the edge--but Don was there, holding him steady, flicking the button open and the zipper down with quick, efficient movements. Charlie summoned his own fine motor skills and trailed his fingers down the side of Don's face, the sensation sparkling on his skin. Don pushed his jeans down the little way they would go, then his boxers, and his hand was on Charlie's cock, a little rough, every touch electric, every movement humming.
Charlie wanted to touch Don but couldn't. His hands were too unsteady to do more than swipe at his hair or cheek as Don teased him, lowering his head to breathe over Charlie's belly, lick at the point of his hip, while his hand kept moving on Charlie's cock. Charlie jammed his fingers into his own mouth instead, biting down to keep from coming; he was losing the sense of himself as strings, becoming flesh and blood again and needing Don's mouth on him.
"Don," he breathed, and Don raised his head, his hand sliding down Charlie's hip, fingertips resting on his ass. They were cold on his skin, and Charlie tilted his hips and closed his eyes, forgetting what he'd been about to ask for.
"Don, fuck me."
For a second nothing happened, and then Charlie felt wet heat on the head of his cock, slow and soft, and he shuddered and pushed into it--that was what he'd been about to ask for--and it was good, so good, but not what he wanted anymore.
"Don--Don--hey," he gasped, and his hand landed in Don's hair. He tightened his grip and pushed Don off, opening his eyes just in time to see Don looking up at him with wide, dark eyes, shaking his head in a nearly-undetectable arc.
Don stared at Charlie, watching the little frown form between his eyebrows almost in slow motion, as much puzzled as unhappy. He recognized that look. Thirty years of experience told him what was coming next, and frustration burned as warm as alcohol in his stomach as Charlie said it.
"I want you to."
Don gritted his teeth and tilted back on his heels, looking anywhere but Charlie's cock, dark and hard and slick with Don's spit--he could still taste it--showing exactly what Charlie wanted.
"Well I don't want to," Don said.
Charlie moved all at once, nearly kicking him in the head with a wild flail, and landed on his knees, practically in Don's lap, one hand landing on his dick with uncanny precision.
"Yes you do," Charlie whispered, leaning into him, smelling like beer and sex and his hand moving just right. Don's cock throbbed. God, he wanted.
"No," Don said, backing away again, practically onto his ass, shoving Charlie back as gently as he could and pushing up to his feet. Charlie stared up at him from the floor, looking somehow more obscene from this angle, his lips red with kisses and his dick half-hidden by his shirt and coat.
Don shook his head, turning his back on Charlie, and Charlie drawled, "Oh, that's how it is."
Don gritted his teeth, telling himself not to turn, not to look, not to be drawn by that know-it-all tone, but Charlie said, "Go on, then, go. The door's not locked anymore, nobody's keeping you here."
There was a tremor in his voice that Don had never heard from his brother when they used to fight; this wasn't that Charlie, confident and cool, in his geeky way. This was his Charlie--c, underneath Charlie's familiar old clothes--and Don couldn't walk away. He looked over his shoulder, and Charlie was looking down and tugging his pants up awkwardly, one-handed, without standing.
"I'm not going anywhere," Don said quietly. "I just don't want to."
Charlie shrugged stiffly. "You want to. I want to and you want to. You just don't want to admit it."
Don scrubbed his hands over his face. "Fine," he said, "I don't want to admit it. That still means I don't want to."
But he'd made the classic mistake, giving Charlie an inch, and Charlie was up on his feet at once, his pants sagging precariously. His dick was still visibly hard, and Don bit down on his lip and stared at the curtained window.
"Why not?" Charlie asked, sounding so genuinely curious that it dampened Don automatic brotherly urge to strangle him. "I mean, what's different now, what changed? Just because you can leave--"
Don shook his head, turning to half-face Charlie, and Charlie's eyes went wide, as though he'd just realized something. He made a wild gesture--he was drunk, Don reminded himself, for the first time in months, the first time he could remember.
"Or is it that I can leave?" Charlie demanded. "I'm not your prisoner anymore, is that--"
"You know that's not true," Don snapped, even though he knew better than to engage, even though he knew there'd be no convincing Charlie of anything but his own stubborn ideas. "I never wanted--"
"You never wanted to admit you wanted!" Charlie snapped back triumphantly. "Was that it, was it all about how you shouldn't? You get off on your guilt, huh? It just hurts so good--"
"Shut up," Don snarled.
It was all too close to the truth, stabbing all around the edges of being exactly right. He hadn't wanted it. He'd been sick with not wanting it, scared and furious, but it hadn't taken a week for all of that to turn into wanting just this, wanting Charlie just like this, no matter how wrong it was--and maybe because of how wrong it was, way down in the dark of his brain.
"It's no fun for you anymore," Charlie plowed on, "isn't that it? Well, come on, there's one frontier left, there's one thing you haven't done wrong yet, come on! Don't you just want to--"
Don turned to face Charlie as Charlie moved, taking a quick step back and knocking Charlie's reaching hand away. Charlie just smiled, wobbling where he stood.
"See?" Charlie whispered. "You want to, we both know you want to, so come on. I'm drunk, take advantage. One more time."
Don almost couldn't breathe; Charlie might as well have hit him. He backed up, leaning against the cold crack between the door and the jamb, staring at Charlie, bright-eyed and somehow close to innocent, despite every word he said. He had no idea.
"Charlie," Don said hoarsely, not knowing how the hell to follow it up.
Charlie stepped right up to him, holding his gaze, one hand raised, palm out, like Don would bolt. Don would have, if there had been anywhere to go.
"Shh," Charlie said, leaning up against him--still hard, still fucking hard, and Don's cock twitched in answer. His lips touched Don's throat, dragging lightly across his skin.
"Just tell me why, Don, that's all I want, is to know why. If I could just understand you--you have a whole life in your head and you might as well be me for all you say. Tell me what it is with you, tell me why."
Don breathed, and Charlie was against his chest; the air he breathed was a cloud of Charlie. He had nowhere to go.
"There's some variable I'm missing," Charlie whispered, fascination in his voice like Don was an unsolvable equation. "Just tell me what it is, because I'm tired of trying to figure this with one eye closed."
Don dropped one hand heavily onto Charlie's shoulder, and Charlie peeled away from him far enough to look Don in the eye. Don felt cold, painfully clear-headed. The lights were bright, shining down on Charlie looking up at him, waiting. Charlie had asked, point-blank. This was it, this was the moment. He had to tell the truth.
He opened his mouth, licked his lips, and said nothing. Charlie squirmed against him, and Don caught his breath, but the words weren't there, not in his head, not in his mouth, not in the air. The moment had come and he was saying nothing.
And he wasn't going to say anything. The realization shook him, and his hand on Charlie tightened convulsively. Charlie frowned again--concerned this time, not frustrated, and his hand flattened against Don's chest even as Don leaned in and kissed him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against Charlie's lips. "I'm just--I'm so sorry."
Charlie was nodding into the kiss, hands on Don's face, warm and sure, steadying him.
"It's okay," Charlie said, and Don smiled grimly and took a step away from the wall, pushing Charlie back before him.
"It's not," Don said. "But I'm still sorry."
"Shh," Charlie breathed, his hands sliding down to Don's throat, to his shoulders, pushing his coat off. "Shh, it's all right, just come to bed."
Don stood mostly still, just pressing his mouth to Charlie's when it came into range, while Charlie undressed him. Charlie pulled the covers back and Don lay down, tucking his hands behind his head and watching as Charlie stripped. He sped through it and crawled into bed next to Don, laying his head on the same pillow and tugging the covers over them. The room was cool, the sheets were cool, but Don radiated heat, and when Charlie scooted closer--right up against him, his cock against Don's hip--Don didn't move away. He just kept watching Charlie, with the same steady, unreadable gaze.
Charlie kissed him carefully, waiting for another retreat, another explosion, waiting for the taste of blood in Don's mouth, but Don just kissed him back slowly, tentatively. Charlie's cock was achingly hard, his whole body still hungry for Don's--but he'd hurt Don in some way he didn't quite understand, saying stupid things he shouldn't have said. Charlie barely moved, only settling a hand on Don's shoulder, only dragging his mouth across Don's, slower and slower, their tongues meeting, stroking, pushing past each other in no hurry to go anywhere. Every touch vibrated all through him, and staying still was torturous; but something had cracked in Don, something as delicate and necessary as finger-bones, and Charlie couldn't jostle him too much.
Slowly, the sheets warmed up, and Don seemed to warm up too. His hand cupped Charlie's cheek, sliding back into Charlie's hair to tilt his head at just the angle he wanted. Charlie made an encouraging sound, and Don's hand slid to the back of his neck and tugged a little. Charlie got closer the only way he could, climbing on top of Don, letting the covers slide back.
The light shone into Don's eyes as Charlie looked down at him, and the shadow was gone; Charlie thrust his cock against Don's and Don's eyes squeezed shut as his mouth flashed open. Charlie kissed him harder this time, shoving his tongue inside purposefully, the same question in different notation. Don's breath between kisses seemed like a sigh, but he thrust up hard against Charlie and didn't pull away.
He could do it just like this, him on top and Don lying still and letting him; the mechanics weren't too bad. But Charlie wanted something different, wanted to be drunk and boneless and facedown in a pillow, wanted to let Don do the work.
He whispered, "Please," as he pressed his open mouth to Don's temple, almost against his ear, and Don shuddered and thrust up harder against him. Charlie smiled and licked Don's skin and rolled down onto his side, and Don moved with him, his hips between Charlie's thighs.
Charlie groped backward, straining his shoulder but unable to turn his back on Don, who leaned in, kissing his throat, his shoulder, distracting Charlie as he finally got his fingertips on the drawer of the night table, pulling it open and reaching awkwardly inside. He'd found the condoms and lube in Don's bag, looking for his own things, and left them optimistically in the drawer, on top of the Gideon Bible.
Don's teeth scraped the bump at the end of Charlie's collarbone, and Charlie's fingers closed around the box and bottle. Don's hand cupped his twisted shoulder for a moment, sinking body heat into the joint, and then his hand slid down, across Charlie's biceps, lightly across the inside of his elbow, down his forearm and wrist. Charlie looked at Don--up at Don, who'd propped himself over Charlie on one elbow.
They were pressed together, chest to chest and cock to cock, and Charlie could feel tension all through Don's body; they were balanced just at the vertical, but something in Don's eyes was teetering. Charlie opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of a word to say that might not tip Don the other way. He licked his lips instead, and Don's eyes followed the motion. Don's tongue followed his back into his mouth, and Don tipped slowly and gently forward, pressing Charlie down beneath him. His hand slid from Charlie's wrist to close over his hand, taking the supplies from his grip, and Charlie relaxed into the mattress under Don's weight.
For a while Don didn't really move, just resting his weight on Charlie, his hips cradled between Charlie's thighs, kissing him slowly and thoroughly. They were both breathless, and Charlie pushed up into each kiss the best he could, his hips jerking up against Don, his cock seeking friction. Don's hands, when they did begin to move on his skin, slid in random swipes over his shoulders, his arms, his sides, and after a few forays Don went back to keeping one hand cupped to Charlie's face, kissing him and kissing him until Charlie was making breathless noises of protest between kisses, his cock straining.
It was strange, being held down this way, having to wait for whatever Don might do. His own hands were free, and Charlie ran them almost frantically over Don's back, grabbing at his ass to pull him closer, but Don was stronger than he was and ignored his efforts. The slower Don moved, the more desperate Charlie got, closing his teeth on Don's lip, digging his nails into the soft skin under Don's shoulder blades.
Don laughed a little against his mouth and said, "You sure you don't want to be on top?"
His voice was breathless, almost shaking. Charlie just spread his legs wider, wrapping them around Don's waist so that Don settled lower over him, and Don caught his breath sharply and pushed up off of him.
For a second Charlie hung on, and then he realized what Don was doing. He squirmed over onto his stomach, his heart racing harder--this was it, Don at his back, Don moving over him, this was just what he had wanted. Did want. Charlie's hips jerked spastically when his cock touched the sheets, and then Don's hand was at the back of his knee, pushing, and Charlie knew this. He tucked one knee under himself, bent flat to his chest, and the dull strain of the muscle as it stretched was somehow exciting, somehow familiar.
Don's hands rested on his ass, hot and dry against his skin, thumbs sliding slowly down toward the center. Charlie shoved the pillow away from his face and pressed his forehead to the cool sheet beneath, gasping for breath--he knew this, he knew this. He knew that if he gave into the urge to touch himself right now he'd come, just from this, just from knowing, in some blind wordless way that spread like fire and light through every cell of his body, what was next.
Don's mouth touched his spine, and Charlie shivered even before he pulled away, cool air rushing over Charlie's skin from the nape of his neck to his ass, exposed by his position. He heard the noise of lube being dispensed from the little bottle, and then one of Don's hands was flat on the small of his back, hot against his hot skin, and one slick fingertip was pressing against him. It rocked tentatively, teasingly, and Charlie made wordless, hungry noises against the sheet, already damp with his breath. Then all at once the finger pressed inside, not hurting but with the same dull hot stretch of muscle he'd felt in his leg, concentrated, intense. His body knew this, even if he couldn't remember.
Charlie pressed his mouth to the mattress, breathing fast through his nose without a sound. If Don thought he didn't like it, that it didn't feel good, he might stop, and then Charlie might just die of frustration. But Don's finger slid into him, wiggling in an exploratory way that made Charlie shudder all over, pleasure running hot and cold up and down his spine, and it was Don who gasped.
Charlie was squeezing tight around his finger--the penetration too much and not nearly enough, all at once. He tried to press up and back, though it was awkward with one leg under him and the other splayed out to the side. Don's hand flattened harder against the small of his back, holding him still, and Don's finger moved in him, slowly, methodically, twisting and teasing until Charlie gave up on being quiet.
"Don," he gasped, half a moan, rounding up to a whine, and Don's fingers curled against his back, short nails scraping slightly, a whisper of pain in the teasing pleasure.
"Yeah," Don said, still breathless, easing his finger out. Charlie held his breath, but Don pressed two fingers back in, slick and slow, and Charlie folded his arms under his head and gave in to the sensation. His head had cleared a little before, but he felt drunk again--more drunk--with pleasure and hunger, the steady slide of Don's fingers, the flick and twist and curl. All of it left him dizzy and weak, made of strings that all twined around Don's fingers at one end, making his cock throb and his heart race and his skin tingle and crawl. His breath came short and uneven and his mouth half-formed one word after another, none of them meaning anything.
Don added a third finger, and a curl of pain slid through Charlie's body, there and gone as he relaxed, rocking back with the rhythm of Don's hands. The head of his cock dragged across the sheets when he moved, and Charlie said please over and over, though he wasn't sure if it was out loud. He was ready, so ready, and then he heard the small unmistakable sound of foil tearing and Don cursing under his breath--slippery fingers were a bitch.
Charlie laughed into the sheets, and then Don said, "Charlie," in a low, steady voice, and his hand was on Charlie's hip.
Charlie twisted his head around, looking back over his shoulder at Don, laughter still twitching around his mouth. Don's eyes were warm and smiling, leaning over him, and Don's cock was pushing into him. Charlie closed his eyes, trying to remember to breathe. Don was moving slowly, carefully, and he felt huge, pleasure and pain and sensation and connection all combining into this, into being fucked. Don went still, buried in him, and Charlie put his head down and rocked his hips a little, tentatively, trying to say yes, good without having to make the words. Don's mouth pressed mutely against his back, and Charlie thought he'd heard.
Don pulled back only slowly, painstakingly slowly, like he didn't want to, and thrust back in a little too fast, almost roughly, but he was dropping kisses on Charlie's shoulder and dripping sweat on Charlie's skin. Charlie nodded helplessly, yes, yes, and Don did it again, faster, and again, and his hand slid under Charlie's hip to his cock, closing clumsily around him. His strokes were uneven, slick fingers slipping, but Charlie made an involuntary grateful noise and jerked into the touch, his cock hardening fast as Don stumbled toward a rhythm, his breath hissing against Charlie's skin.
Charlie pushed up a little on his tucked-up knee, sending blood rushing into his foot and changing the angle of Don's thrust just so--he saw little lights behind his eyelids, his whole body going briefly pins and needles, and Don's hand tightened on his cock.
Don's cock moved in him again, again, and Charlie said, "Oh fuck, oh--" and came with Don's hand on him and Don's cock in him and Don's lips brushing lightly against his skin.
Charlie had barely gone still before Don was moving again, thrusting into him slowly, gently. Charlie shuddered. Every sensation felt amplified now. He braced his arms against the bed to push back at Don, clenching around his cock until he gasped. Don closed a hand on his hip, moving faster but raggedly, and the next time Charlie thrust back against him Don froze and then jerked, gasping as he came.
Don stayed there for a while, resting on Charlie's back, squishing him into the mattress with every breath. Charlie's cheek was resting on a damp spot on the sheet, to say nothing of the wet spot lower down, but Charlie felt like a puddle himself, much too warm and limp to care. When Don moved away--slowly, making a soft soothing noise and running his hand over Charlie's back--Charlie couldn't help letting out a small wordless whine. Don flipped a sheet over him, a poor, light substitute for the warmth and weight of Don's body, but he came back soon, cleaning Charlie up and tugging him out of the bed and into the one beside it, sliding between cool clean sheets. It was like déjà vu, cuddling up to Don again; but he'd gotten everything he wanted now, and when Charlie looked at Don's face, he only looked tired.
"Thanks," Charlie whispered, settling his arm and leg across Don, his nose against Don's neck where every breath would smell of him.
Don's arm settled over Charlie's, holding him in place, and Charlie was almost asleep by the time Don said, "You're welcome."
Don woke up almost exactly the way he'd fallen asleep, with Charlie wrapped around him, too warm and too close, and a dense knot of guilt aching in his stomach. His head hurt now, too, and his mouth tasted foul, but the worst part of his truly bad hangovers had always been what he remembered, not what hurt.
He could have taken back deciding not to tell; he could take it back right now, or tomorrow, or in a few days. It had been a bad moment, a drunken argument, it had seemed like a good idea at the time but didn't stand up to the cold light of day. That sort of thing happened. God knew he'd spent enough mornings after taking back things he had said, never mind things he hadn't.
But it wasn't just what he hadn't said, it was what he'd done. He'd fucked his baby brother, and he'd liked it like he couldn't remember ever liking anything, and there was no way in the world to take that back. For the rest of his life he would know what Charlie had looked like, sounded like, felt like, inside and out, and Don would never be able to forget. And he would always want it, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Don looked around the small, dim room, trying to calculate how long it would take to get Charlie moving, packed up and gone. Whatever he'd been waiting for, hanging around here... there was no point waiting anymore.
But no rush, either. Charlie was sprawled across him, heavy and still in sleep. For all he'd been too close for comfort last night, Charlie still didn't know the truth. His own clothes hadn't made him remember, his gameboy hadn't; hell, he looked his own brother in the face every hour of the day and still had no idea. Maybe it wouldn't matter that Don never told, if Charlie never remembered. Don closed his eyes and let himself think of that for a second, of giving Charlie one of the fake IDs waiting in the car and just staying in the wind forever, just like this. Together. Not brothers ever again, but still together like they were supposed to be.
But Don had chased enough fugitives to know what kind of life it would be, motel rooms or maybe a cheap apartment somewhere, working under the table when the cash ran out. Charlie wouldn't mind, because he didn't know any better; he'd spend hours in public libraries, reading books about math and using their computers.
And it would take maybe an hour, maybe two, before Charlie found himself on the internet, researching his own ideas about math; ten minutes to call or email CalSci or the FBI. Another ten to find out who Don was, if that. Two, three hours tops, from the moment Charlie got any more freedom than he'd had with Williamson until it all came crashing down.
Don opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't like he didn't know what he had to do; there was only one way this was going to end, and no point putting it off. He squirmed over onto his side, dumping Charlie off. Charlie moaned and frowned, burrowing into the covers, and Don shook him gently.
"Hey. Chuck."
Charlie made an inquisitive noise at that, even as he tried to push Don's hand away, and Don realized what he'd said. "Charlie. You awake?"
"No," Charlie said into the pillow, and then he stretched, and Don felt the body beside his waking up, a current of awareness running through Charlie's muscles a second before Charlie's mouth touched his bare shoulder. Charlie added in a low voice, "I could be persuaded."
Don swallowed hard and turned to kiss the top of Charlie's head, forcing down the lump in his stomach--it didn't matter now, none of it would make a damn difference anymore--and said, "What do you think about getting out of here today?"
"Huh," Charlie said, more a yawn than a word. "Can we go to the Museum of Science? It's supposed to be cool. Or the Aquarium. Do you like fish?"
It was miles down the freeway from what he'd meant, but that hardly mattered. They both knew Don wasn't going to tell Charlie no.
"Sure," he said, ruffling Charlie's hair. "We'll go see the fish."
Charlie pressed his nose to the glass and thought that he felt like a kid. He still couldn't remember what it had been like to be one, but he'd been watching them all day, at the museum and the aquarium. He thought he felt what they felt, the same delight in everything he saw. He'd stopped at every exhibit, tried every demonstration--most of the concepts were painfully simplified, but Charlie was fascinated. The presentation was great, but better than that it was familiar somehow. These things all seemed right.
Somewhere in his forgotten past, there had been museums, and video games, and trips to the aquarium, and gift shops. Sometime before whatever he'd done that he had to forget, there had been good things. He'd been real once; he'd been a child once. Logically, he'd known that had to be true, but he'd never seen children up close before, and they were everywhere today.
Don had given him a strange look when he mentioned the museum being crowded, but there were more people around than he'd ever seen, all of them real, families with kids, strolling adults, nobody scared, nobody scary. Don still watched them all with wary eyes, but when Charlie wasn't actively pointing something out to him he would lag a little behind, letting Charlie go off on his own. That alone told Charlie there was no danger here.
Charlie tore his gaze away from the tank full of tiny, bright silver fish and looked around for Don. He was standing a few meters away along an unobstructed line of sight, but he wasn't looking at Charlie. He was staring to one side, his eyes fixed and his mouth tight. Charlie tensed as he followed Don's gaze, but there was nothing wrong there.
Two boys stood in front of another tank, and as Charlie watched the bigger one bent and picked up the smaller one, hoisting him awkwardly up to the window. He tried to point to something and then had to quickly grab at the smaller child, using both arms to hold him up, and in Charlie's peripheral vision he saw Don's hand move and then fall back to his side. He'd have tried to catch the little one if he'd fallen, Charlie thought, even though he was much too far away.
Charlie walked over to him, the fish forgotten in his curiosity about Don. His own childhood was a blank, but Don had to remember his. Charlie recalled, with a vague sense of unease, that he'd said something about that last night, let his envy and frustration loose; but before Charlie was in arm's reach Don turned to him and smiled, and Charlie didn't worry any more about it.
"I've been wondering," Charlie said, looking down at his feet, "what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was little."
Don didn't say anything; when Charlie looked up Don was watching the little boys again. Charlie cleared his throat and pushed on, thinking of the packet of freeze-dried ice cream he'd bought in the last gift shop, which he'd had to have because he knew how it would taste, the bizarre feel of it on his tongue, just from looking at the package.
"An astronaut, maybe? Don't all kids want to be astronauts?"
Don looked back at him, something strange in his eyes, his mouth in some shape that wasn't quite a smile or a frown.
"Maybe," Don said. "I didn't."
Charlie smiled. "What did you want to be?"
Don just stared at him, and Charlie wondered if this was something you weren't supposed to ask, if it was something other people didn't think about or remember about themselves.
Don looked down and said quietly, "I wanted to play baseball."
Charlie waited, but Don just turned and started walking, into the next dim room lined with glass windows. Charlie followed him, walking quickly to keep up, and said daringly, "Tell me about it."
Don glanced sideways at him, raising an eyebrow, and Charlie bit his lip. He'd said something last night, something he shouldn't, demanding Don tell him something. He didn't know what exactly--it had seemed important at the time, and it had hurt Don somehow--but he was pretty sure it hadn't been this.
Don didn't break stride, anyway, and said lightly, "About baseball?"
Charlie shrugged, hooking his thumbs into the straps of his backpack and tugging at them as he walked. "About when you were little, when you wanted to play."
Charlie was looking away, at the tanks they were passing--frogs, all colors and sizes, on rocks and in pools--and Don let out a breath, not quite a sigh. He touched Charlie's shoulder, steering him over to a tank full of frogs--no, toads, according to the sign--but when Charlie leaned his forehead against the glass it was to look at Don in the watery light.
Don stared at the glass, but Charlie didn't think he was seeing it. He said haltingly, "You were supposed to be five to play t-ball."
He glanced sideways at Charlie, and Charlie nodded, almost holding his breath.
"My birthday was..." Don trailed off, frowning at the toads suddenly fiercely.
"My birthday is in July," he said. "I would have turned five halfway through the season and then had to wait a whole year. I begged my parents like crazy, until they begged the t-ball coach just to shut me up."
Charlie smiled even as his stomach clenched with envy intense as hunger--that was what he wanted, memories like that, a history like that. Parents. Parents who had listened to a four-year-old boy beg for the thing he wanted most in all the world, and found a way to give it to him.
"So you got to play?"
Don nodded, smiling a little at last. "Shortest kid on the team. My mom came to every game, and somehow my dad would always get there for the last inning, and they'd buy me ice cream after and I'd tell my dad all about the game. I was always trying to keep score, because they didn't, they always told us we tied. Drove me crazy."
Charlie grinned. "You needed a good statistician."
Don looked over at him, reached out and ran a hand over Charlie's hair.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess I did."
Charlie was talking to him about penguins as their waitress led them to a table; he was just regurgitating all the signs and brochures he'd read that day, as far as Don could tell. He had that confident, knowing tone in his voice, though, and Don was happy to let him run on. He still felt weirdly shaky somewhere inside from telling Charlie about playing ball as a kid, like running too far too fast, until his legs would barely hold him up.
He hooked the bag of gift shop junk--assorted rocks, random glow-in-the-dark stuff, a t-shirt with a shark on it, everything that Charlie hadn't been able to jam into his backpack but still absolutely had to have--over the back of his chair and sat down. Across from him, Charlie was shrugging out of his backpack and sitting down too. "Last year a glacier blocked the mouth of the bay," he said, "and thousands--"
He stopped dead, staring down at the table. As Don watched, he ran his fingers across the smooth wooden surface, once, twice, three times across the same short path.
"Thousands?" Don asked, and his voice was light but his heart rate was kicking up. Charlie didn't even seem to hear him, frowning down at the table. His fingers were still.
"Charlie?"
He shook his head slightly, pushing his fingers slowly across the table in the opposite direction. Don sat very still, saying nothing, every muscle tensed to spring.
"Don," Charlie said, after far too much time had passed, everyone around them going on like nothing was happening at all. Charlie looked up with wonder in his eyes, a grin growing bright on his face.
"Don, I just remembered something."
Don didn't even try to look pleased for Charlie; he was having a hard enough time breathing. Charlie's smile was fading into a worried look when Don said, "Are you sure?"
Charlie frowned, and he shrugged. "I think so. I've never..."
Don rubbed his hands over his face, trying to get himself under control. Charlie wouldn't have been smiling at him like that if he'd remembered anything upsetting. He'd been happy, and Don was fucking it up, taking that away from him.
Don lowered his hands, balling them up out of sight, and said, "So tell me about it."
Charlie smiled again shyly. "I was little."
His hands waved in front of him, trying to estimate a size. "I was sitting on my--on my mom's lap, Don."
Don pressed the heel of his hand down just above the healing gash on his thigh, pain surging under pressure. He kept his face steady, and nodded, and breathed.
"She was holding on to me, so tight, I can--" Charlie's eyes unfocused, his smile turning dreamy, and he said, "I can remember how she smelled. I had my hand on the table, next to this piece of paper she was writing on. She asked me if I could multiply these two numbers she wrote down, four digit numbers, and I could, I did, as soon as she wrote them down, and I was sitting there with the answer on the tip of my tongue, but she was--"
Charlie shook his head, running one hand over his own arm from shoulder to elbow, and Don pushed down harder on his thigh, the dull throb turning sharp. Charlie had been three; Don had been sitting on the other side of the table with a calculator, waiting to check his answer. He'd been the one Charlie said it to first. He'd been the one who told their parents they had to see what Charlie could do. He'd had no idea what it really meant.
"She was holding on to me so tight," Charlie said. "Like she was nervous, or angry. I didn't know if I was supposed to be able to, so I wasn't saying it. I was just sitting there, not saying anything. That's all I remember."
Don remembered that long frozen moment. Charlie had turned his face against their mother's shirt (she'd been wearing a cream-colored sweater, and Don could remember what she had smelled like, too) and said nothing. Their father had been standing in the kitchen doorway, because his excitement made Charlie too nervous to speak.
It was Don who had broken the silence, who'd said, "Come on, Chuck, tell. I dare you."
And Charlie had turned his head and said, nearly shouted--
"Nine million, three hundred twenty-four thousand, four hundred thirty-two." Charlie frowned, rubbing his forehead. "I can't remember the factors, though, and it divides into more than one pair of four-digit numbers."
Don couldn't remember them either, though he'd punched them into the calculator and held up the result to show his dad, shouting his brother's triumph.
"Sorry," Don said, but Charlie shook his head.
He was smiling again, brighter than ever. "Don, I have a mother."
Don could remember how she'd smelled, and how the hospital had smelled, and the smell of chalk in the air as he stood in the garage and repeated, "She's gone, Charlie," until his brother understood. He pressed down on his leg until his fingers were almost numb, and the tightness in his throat faded in comparison to the pain.
Charlie set up the candles that night and hesitated before lighting them. He could remember his mother, her arms, her hands, her smell. Not her face, or her voice--not yet--but he remembered her. His mother. She had asked him to do math for her. She must have taught him to light the candles; she must have taught him to pray. But the words still wouldn't come. All he could remember was 9,324,432--divisible by four, the number of candles he would light tonight.
Charlie opened his eyes and lit the match, glancing up at Don, who sat watching him with the same guarded expression he'd had for hours now, before looking back down to light the candles. Don had been upset when Charlie remembered. Charlie hadn't understood that at first, but he'd been bouncing it around in his head, all through dinner and on the way back to the motel, and he had a queasy, uncomfortable hypothesis.
Don didn't want him to remember.
He didn't want to believe it, but it was the only thing that made any sense. He'd tried to think that Don had been worried that he'd remembered something bad, but he didn't think Don believed he had really bad things to remember, and anyway he'd been smiling. If it was that Don didn't want him to be unhappy--
But Don didn't want him to be unhappy, Charlie could swear that. Don had never wanted to hurt him, and even Charlie had known the things he accused Don of last night weren't true. Don had proven that he still wanted Charlie now that they'd escaped.
They had escaped, Charlie thought, glancing up from the brief flames of the candles, already starting to gutter, to look around the room. They could go outside--and had--but not much had really changed. He'd been afraid that Don would leave him, because Don had a real life to go back to, but Don hadn't. He was sitting around going nowhere, just like Charlie was; Charlie had nowhere to go, and Don...
That had to be it. Don didn't want him to remember because Don didn't want things to change. Maybe he didn't even think of Charlie's lost memories as something that was wrong with Charlie. Maybe he just thought of it as being how Charlie was, and he was worried that if Charlie remembered things would be different.
The candles started to sputter out, sending up four streams of thin white smoke, and when Don looked up Charlie smiled at him. Don smiled wearily back, and Charlie thought that maybe the next time he remembered something he just wouldn't mention it right away. He could take things slow and let Don know he liked everything just the way it was.
Don said, "I've been thinking."
Charlie's smile got away from him; his lips parted, and he realized with something a little too fast and startled to be humor that this must be just how Don had felt a few hours ago.
Don seemed to know it. His lips quirked into a slightly wider smile, and he said, "I was thinking we should check out tomorrow, start driving. Somewhere warmer."
After a day spent freezing every time they stepped outdoors, and lugging his (hand-me-down or stolen or inherited, depending on your precise definitions) coat around all the time they were indoors, Charlie couldn't argue with warmer. But Don wasn't just throwing out the suggestion as an alternative to buying mittens and a hat. He'd been thinking about it.
"Anyplace warmer in particular?"
Don nodded. "California. I know people there. They could help you find out who you are, without going to the police or anything."
Charlie opened his mouth, but he didn't know what he wanted to say--Yes, yes, now, let's go, or Florida, Mexico, anywhere but California--the thought made his heart race, filled him with excitement and an enormous formless dread.
He heard himself say in a small, choked voice, "California?"
Don leaned closer to him, his gaze warm and kind and searching. Charlie realized, dimly and far away, that Don may not have wanted him to remember, but now he was offering Charlie a way to find out.
"Yeah," Don said. "I grew up there. It's... nice."
Charlie swallowed hard. He did want to know. He had a mother; these people Don knew could help him find her, help him find out who he'd been and how he'd become this nameless person on the run. He nodded quickly, before he could think better of it. "California."
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