The first aid supplies were exactly where Charlie expected them to be, but something looked wrong about the medicine cabinet. He couldn't really think it through, because he was tired--always tired, his vision edged with a perpetual haze--and his hands were shaking. He had to concentrate on what he was doing, one step at a time.
He washed his hands. The soap stung on his knuckles and the little cuts on his fingers, but he gritted his teeth and scrubbed under hot water, rinsing everything clean. He dried his hands carefully on a clean towel, trying not to get lint in the wounds or blood on the cloth. Then he sat down on the closed toilet and bandaged the worst of the cuts, moving so slowly and patiently that his hands and arms ached with strain by the time he was done.
Charlie put everything away in the medicine cabinet and headed downstairs. There was a sandwich on a plate beside his laptop, and Charlie sat down and took a bite. He heard the tap turn on in the kitchen--water rushing clear and fast--and it finally hit him.
One whole shelf in the medicine cabinet was empty. The shelf that should have held... aspirin. Other painkillers. Two or three old prescription bottles.
A bottle of sleeping pills.
Charlie felt a weary thrill of anger, too muted to mean much.
His father had taken them away, his father didn't want him to have the pills, to sleep--but the tap shut off in the kitchen, and Charlie sighed and took another bite of his sandwich. Far more likely that his father didn't want him taking the whole bottle at once; if he asked for one pill, he'd probably get it. If he asked for one each night, and saved them...
Charlie took another grim bite of his sandwich, staring at his laptop. His father wouldn't let him get away with that. He didn't want to do that. He didn't, didn't want to drug himself and definitely didn't want... He just wanted to sleep, so he could wake up, so he could work.
His father walked into the dining room and said, "There you are."
Charlie nodded and swallowed. "Thanks," he said, gesturing with the sandwich.
His father grunted acknowledgment and took a seat, opening the newspaper.
Charlie looked down again. "I think we're out of aspirin. There's none upstairs."
"Oh?" his father said, just as nonchalant as Charlie. "I'll have to pick some up when I go grocery shopping."
The paper rustled, and Charlie looked up to see his father watching him over the top of it.
"Unless you'd like to go yourself and buy some."
"Ah." Charlie said, and his brain skipped ahead, mapping the routes--on foot or bike or bus--to half a dozen drug stores where he could buy a bottle of any kind of pills he liked. Outside the house, beyond the familiar borders of the yard. Out there alone.
"No. I just thought I'd mention it."
"Mm," his father said, and raised the paper. "Thank you."
The doorbell rang, and Charlie froze and looked to his father.
His father turned a page and didn't look up. "Why don't you get that, Charlie."
"I--" Charlie said helplessly, making a gesture from his sandwich to the laptop that his father did not look up to see. It could be anyone at the door, anyone.
The doorbell rang again, and still his father made no move to get up. Charlie looked from him to the door and back again, helplessly, and finally his father met his gaze. "I'll be right here, Charlie. Now go answer the door."
It was an order, kind but implacable.
Charlie set down his sandwich and closed his laptop. He got to his feet and turned toward the door, and he walked toward it, one step after another.
There was no one between him and the door, no one really with him on this side, just his father who didn't understand and couldn't protect him, and there might be anything, anyone, outside.
Charlie didn't look back, didn't seek reassurance from the silence behind him, didn't let himself falter. It seemed to take forever to reach the door, and the moment arrived far too soon, the doorknob under his hand. Charlie held his breath as he turned the lock, and kept himself shielded behind the door as he opened it.
David was standing on the porch, well back from the door, holding his cell phone and frowning down at it. He smiled when he saw Charlie, and Charlie exhaled.
A man with a gun, yes. But it could have been worse.
"Hey, Charlie," David said. "Good to see you again."
"David." Charlie nodded cautiously. He glanced back over his shoulder, but his father, true to his word, was still at the dining room table, still reading the paper. No help.
"Nothing's wrong," David said, drawing Charlie's attention back as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Even though Charlie had opened the door, David stayed on the other side of the welcome mat, his shoulders slumped, his stance diffident. "I just stopped by to see how you're doing."
"Oh," Charlie said. It occurred to him that he knew--some lesson he'd been taught once, though the context eluded him--that he ought to invite David inside, offer him something to drink. The day was cool, though it was sunny beyond the shade of the porch. It had to be chilly where David was standing.
"Pretty much the same," Charlie said. "I still don't remember you. Sorry."
David nodded, seeming unsurprised, and rocked slightly on his heels. His interest in Charlie's welfare seemed dogged and cautious all at once.
On a hunch, Charlie said, "Tell Terry nothing's wrong, okay? I'm just... the same."
That was approximately true, and it wasn't Terry's concern if he couldn't sleep, if he closed his eyes sometimes and saw a city drowning, or himself. He couldn't ask Terry for help anymore than he could ask his father or Larry. He was in this alone.
David gave him a rueful smile, so Charlie's guess had been on target. "Yeah, I'll tell her, Charlie. She just needs to make sure. I think she's just taking over for Don, you know, looking out for you."
Charlie looked away, trying to hide his reaction to that. If Don cared whether he was all right now, Don knew where to find him.
"Yeah," Charlie said, meaninglessly, wondering whether he could just ask David to go away. He ran his hand through his hair, and then jerked backward, almost slamming the door in David's face, when David took a sudden step toward him.
"Hey, sorry, sorry," David said, hands up again though he didn't back away.
Charlie peered out through the bare inches between the door and the frame, his injured hand clenched into a fist. Stupid to let David see it, stupid. If he could just think properly he wouldn't have done it.
"Charlie," David said softly. "Can you tell me what you did to your hand?"
Charlie glanced back toward his father again, and he'd succeeded in drawing everyone's attention now; his father was on his feet, standing in the middle of the living room, watching him. He'd clearly heard what David said, because he folded his arms and raised his eyebrows, waiting for Charlie to answer.
Charlie lowered his gaze and swallowed hard. "It's nothing. I--I got angry and hit a wall."
Four or five times, and the sturdy plaster of Don's bedroom wall had definitely won that bout. But the cuts on his hand were only superficial, and he'd bandaged them well enough, and it was his hand and his wall anyway.
David was nodding slowly. "Okay, Charlie. Thank you for telling me. Do you mind if I come by again, next week? Just to say hi?"
"For proof of life?" Charlie knew he ought to smile, but it seemed like too much effort.
"Yeah," David said, perfectly serious. "If you don't mind."
No one had ever received proof of his life before. Charlie's kidnappers had never bothered. And now Charlie was free, safe in his own home, and only now did anyone care to make him prove it. It would mean more visits from David, a man with a gun coming around and checking on him again and again, asking him questions.
Charlie glanced back at his father, the worry on his face as he stood there, just watching, never asking, never saying a word. No one had ever given his father proof of life.
Charlie turned back to David, standing on the porch awaiting Charlie's answer. Charlie nodded, and then he closed the door and locked it.
Charlie picked his way across the floor of Don's room, littered with the contents of the dresser and bookshelf, the night stand tipped over and the drawers pulled out. One lay beside it and the other across the room, under a sharp-cornered dent in the plaster. Don's closet stood open, the door hanging a little askew. The last time he'd been in here Charlie had torn it open, but he hadn't been able to make himself step inside the small, crowded space.
Today Charlie had managed to spend an hour or two working before the fierce concentration required gave him a splitting headache, and he'd been unwilling to ask his father for aspirin even when he actually needed it. It occurred to him that Don had never made him ask for painkillers, and Charlie had felt suddenly overwhelmed with simple longing for Don, unmixed with any other emotion, just wanting him back. Don would understand this, Don would know what to do about it.
Don wasn't up here, of course, but it was his room, filled with his things, and the closet was the one place that was still just as Don had left it. Charlie stepped inside.
There wasn't as much inside as Charlie had thought on his first panicked glance, days before. Most of the space was taken up by another dresser, this one empty except for a lonely marble rolling in the third drawer. Charlie picked it up and stared at it for a moment. It was a cats-eye, translucent except for a ribbon of red and blue in the center. He pocketed the tiny sphere and looked to the other contents of the closet, a small stack of cardboard boxes. The top one was just a shoe box, old and faded.
Charlie picked it up and lifted the lid off, inhaled the faint dusty smell of long-dry dirt, and memory swept through him.
He'd been eight when he found out, watching something on television, just what guns were, what they did to people. He'd had a small collection of GI Joes, and he'd gone right then and gotten them all, separated each one from his molded plastic rifle. He'd gone and found his mother's good sharp scissors, and then he'd sat on the floor of his bedroom and cut the tiny plastic guns into unrecognizable fragments.
He'd been halfway through his systematic disarmament when his mother found him. She'd been angry about the scissors for a moment, and then she'd realized what he was doing. He remembered the relief--more than relief, the sense of vindication--when she sat down beside him on the floor.
"Finish what you started, then," she'd said. "And be careful how you hold them, you don't want to cut your fingers."
He'd told her he didn't want the action figures anymore, either, because they were soldiers, so she'd accompanied him to the backyard to give them an honorable burial by the back fence. Charlie remembered digging the hole, laying them all down side by side, and covering them up again, his hands and his mother's patting the dirt back into place. That had been the last time he saw them.
Except that they were all here, brushed nearly clean, in a shoebox in Don's bedroom, among Don's childhood toys. Don would have been thirteen then--too old to play with such toys?
Maybe not too old to rescue them. He'd dug them up and kept them--Don who'd slept with a gun tucked against his throat, Don who'd put a gun in Charlie's hand and showed him how to use it, Don who'd killed men in front of Charlie, not for the first time.
Their parents had taught Charlie that guns and the men who carried them were something he could just--just decide he didn't want, like violence would go away if Charlie didn't believe in it. His father kept telling him he had to talk to someone about what had happened; like talking would help, like talking could possibly solve this, like it was something else Charlie could decide.
Even as a kid, Don must have known better. Don had grown up and joined the FBI, carried a gun. Don had killed a man who threatened his partner, because he had to, and Don had gone on somehow, because he had to. Don had found Charlie, and Don had done what he had to, then, too--but all he could tell Charlie was not to think about it until it didn't make him feel sick anymore. Don had understood, Don had known what Charlie needed to know, he had been with Charlie and he knew all about it, how to get through it, how to survive it and make sure Charlie survived, too.
Then he'd just dumped Charlie here, like Charlie was one more thing Don felt sick about, one more thing he didn't want to think about. Like Don didn't want to be on his side anymore.
There was nobody who could tell Charlie what to do now.
Charlie dropped the shoebox, and shoved over the next box in the stack; it hit the ground, papers spilling out over Charlie's feet, but Charlie hardly noticed. It had revealed what was leaning up against the closet wall behind it. Charlie could just see the handle of an aluminum baseball bat.
Charlie picked it up and settled his hands around it. The rubber grip had been wrapped with tape where it was wearing away, and it took him a moment to find the way to hold it--the bat was heavy and awkward in his hands, as unaccustomed as a gun. Charlie backed out of the closet holding the bat, trying to get a feel for it. He took an experimental swing, adjusted his grip, swung again. There, yes, that was the balance point.
Charlie turned back toward the closet door, swinging the bat as he did; it struck the light wood with a shocking crash, knocking the door off the track, gaping open. Charlie stood staring for a moment, but he'd done it, and the bat was in his hands, not feeling heavy at all anymore as his heart raced. He raised it again, hit the door again, harder this time, swinging wildly, another crash and another and another, wood splintering as the door was torn off the hinges entirely.
Charlie turned and took a swing at the stacked boxes, but they were heavier, absorbing the impact and sending an unpleasant reverberation back up Charlie's shoulders. He turned away, jumping over the wrecked closet door to get to the overturned nightstand and bringing the bat down over his head like an axe onto its side. It resisted the first swing and the second, crashing like a drum, but it cracked on the third, and Charlie could hear himself laughing as he swung.
He gasped for breath and swung harder, already looking around for another target, cracks and crashes echoing off the walls of the small room. It didn't matter who heard him. No one could tell him what to do.
Don stood with his hands and forehead braced against the tiled wall of the tiny shower, letting the water pour down over him. The water pressure was shitty, and the water smelled like rust and tasted worse, but it didn't matter. He didn't expect it to wash him clean.
He was hard, painfully hard, and he couldn't shake the dream: he'd woken up and Charlie was there, pressed up against his side in the sagging bed, his hand on Don's cock and his mouth brushing against Don's throat, whispering, "I still want you, I still need you, come back, come--"
And then a siren had jerked Don awake, like they did five or six times a night when he slept at all, and now he was just standing here.
He dreamed about Charlie a lot, and all his dreams were bad, one way or another, but this one was probably the worst, because there was always that second when he woke up and believed it was true: that Charlie had somehow forgiven him, that Charlie could possibly want--
Him. This. Anything to do with Don.
He tried to think of something else--anything that wasn't sex, wasn't Charlie, but he'd lost that battle a long damn time ago.
"Fuck."
Don turned his back to the wall and braced his feet against the edges of the shower, wrapped his hand around his dick and closed his eyes, and let himself imagine Charlie--not here, in his grim little place with bars on the windows and an endless parade of sirens outside, not--not anywhere for any reason, just Charlie.
Charlie's eyes and the bright flash of his smile and the touch of his hands. Don knew he should just--just get this over with, but as soon as he let his eyes close the dream was back, the weight of Charlie's body against his, the heat of him warming the cold night. Don stroked himself slowly, thinking of it (it couldn't hurt Charlie, the real Charlie, now, whatever he thought--Charlie was safely out of his reach).
But in his dream Charlie was right here, kissing him, and Don bit his lip, thinking of the drag of Charlie's lips on his skin, the bite of Charlie's stubble where he'd rub his cheek. Not saying a word now, and Don's mouth fell open as he imagined pulling Charlie up into a kiss, Charlie's dick against his hip and Charlie's hand stroking him, unhurried and easy, and Don's hips jerked suddenly, his hand tightening on his cock as he came, stroking himself roughly through it as the image of Charlie shattered.
Don braced one hand against the slick tile and sank down to sit on the floor, knees drawn up in the tight space. He braced his head on his elbows and cradled his head in his hands, and didn't move until long after the water had turned cold.
Charlie dropped the bat with a thump to the carpet, his hands tingling from repeated impacts, his body still humming with energy, his face stinging. He touched the back of his hand to his cheek and it came away bloody--he must have gotten hit by something when he broke it, but he hadn't even felt it until now. Charlie licked the blood away, looking around the room, everything smashed and broken, the mattress and spring both knocked off the bed and the bed frame listing against the wall.
Charlie walked over there, thinking of the first time he'd come in here, imagining Don asleep in the tidy bed. There wasn't much bed left now. Charlie grinned as he ripped the last of the bedding free of the mattress. Charlie kicked it free of the spring, so it rested unevenly on top of the rest of the debris. That was about right.
If Don were here now--he'd be the one with the bloodied face, for starters, and Charlie's fists clenched even as he dropped to his knees, thinking of it. He could feel it, the power in his arm and the impact of his own fist plowing straight into Don's face, unhesitating, snapping Don's head back, knocking him down to his knees. And when Don looked up at Charlie with a bruise darkening on his cheek and a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth...
Charlie could think of better things to do with Don than hit him. He forced his hands to open, unbuttoning his jeans and yanking the zipper down, and he was already hard by the time he got a hand on himself, hissing at the touch--it would be Don's hand, Don kneeling in front of him, bending his head for Charlie, taking his cock out and stroking him and then licking, and Charlie would sink his hands into Don's hair, thrusting roughly into his battered mouth, hot and wet and taking it, taking whatever Charlie gave him.
Charlie jerked himself roughly, fast and tight and careless, his hips jerking as he thought of Don doing this for him, Don doing whatever he wanted, Don's yielding mouth and dark eyes looking up at him, Don's hands just holding on while Charlie pushed and pulled. Charlie bit down on his lip as he came--not a sound, not for this--and closed his eyes, imagining Don's eyes slipping closed, Don sucking him right to the end.
But as Charlie lay on the mattress, catching his breath, he knew that Don wouldn't look up at him again, wouldn't come closer to Charlie than down on his knees. The taste of blood in Charlie's mouth was only his own.
"Charles..."
Larry trailed off, his expression pained, his gaze slipping down again. Charlie knew the gash on his cheek was eye-catching and ugly, the irregular scab almost black. His father had pulled two jagged splinters from it the day before, tight-lipped and silent. It itched as much as it hurt; under Larry's scrutiny Charlie shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from scratching it open.
Larry finally met Charlie's eyes again and shrugged. "I just don't think now is a good time."
"Not a good time?" Charlie laughed a little, but Larry's expression didn't ease. "What, is my office being fumigated? Can it not fit me into its busy schedule? It is still my office, right?"
"Of course it's still your office. No one evicted you in your absence. But you're still recovering--"
"I'm trying to work," Charlie said flatly, turning his back on Larry to look at the boards again, not that he hadn't memorized their unchanging contents days ago. "I've been cooped up here too long, I need to be somewhere else. I want to work in my office, how is that so hard to understand?"
He'd been thinking about his office, lately. He remembered it very distinctly: big and sunny and bright, filled with things he'd found interesting or considered important. It was a whole room of the Charlie he was supposed to be--Professor Charles Eppes was impressed upon every surface. If he could just be there, he could find a way to be that.
"It's not hard to understand," Larry said. "But for now..."
"I've been home a month, Larry. I can remember how to get there, I remember the names of everyone I'm likely to encounter--I remember the state of Math Department politics as they stood six months ago. How much better do I need to be to spend a few hours on campus?"
Charlie's voice shook a little. He didn't like to think of the getting there part, but he'd already worked out how to get there without passing through that parking lot at all; his father would drive him, he was sure. But then he'd been sure Larry would, too.
Larry didn't say anything, and Charlie turned to face him. Larry's eyes darted to the cut on his cheek again. "It's not just about remembering things, Charles."
Charlie felt his fists clench, his face heating. The cut throbbed.
What happened in Don's room stayed there. His father never remarked on the noises, and the mess had never been disturbed after that first time his father confronted him. Charlie could do what he wanted in his own house, and no one could tell him otherwise--but Larry wasn't cooperating.
"Before you come back to CalSci," Larry said slowly, "in whatever capacity you'd like to come back, I really think you should speak to some--"
"Oh, this again," Charlie said, shaking his head, throwing his hands up. "Look, I'm not interested in talking to anyone. I've just been having trouble sleeping, that's all--"
Larry was shaking his head right back, shoulders set stubbornly. "Charles, you need help--"
"No, I need my office--"
"I'm not the only one who thinks so," Larry said sharply.
Charlie stopped, mouth open.
"I've been keeping your department apprised of your situation since you returned," Larry said, looking away. "Everyone is concerned about you, Charlie."
"You've been telling them about me?" Charlie felt a spike of some feeling from a dream or a nightmare, betrayed, his secrets spilled by someone he'd trusted... "They all think--what--"
Larry wouldn't meet his eyes.
Charlie stepped closer, nearly toe to toe with Larry, and Larry finally looked up. "What have you been telling them, Larry? Why don't they want me coming around?"
Larry shook his head. "They just want what's best for you, just like I do and your father does. You need--"
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" The words came out nearly a shout, and Larry flinched but didn't back away. "You think I'm losing my fucking mind, isn't that it? Just keep me in the garage, keep me chasing my tail in eleven dimensions--"
Larry shook his head, but his eyes shifted, looking over Charlie's shoulder at the chalkboards. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes, and--oh God, he hadn't waited months for Charlie to do this work because no one else could. He'd waited because it didn't matter. He'd let Charlie labor at this for weeks, thinking it might just make a difference and all this time--
"Charles," Larry said, not meeting his gaze, and Charlie couldn't bear to hear one more word.
He had to shut Larry up, and the shortest distance between two points was the arc described by his fist. Larry's eyes went wide in the second before impact, and then his head snapped back and pain exploded through Charlie's knuckles. Charlie fell back from the blow, one step and then another, shaking out his hand as Larry stood still, head bowed.
It was only when Larry looked up at him, blue eyes full of disappointment and a trickle of blood running from his lip, that Charlie understood what he'd just done. He stumbled backward nearly to the chalkboard, his stomach twisting.
"Larry." It came out a choked whisper, like he'd just been punched in the gut.
Larry touched his fingertips to his mouth and looked down at them, then shook his head. He held Charlie's gaze for a long moment, and Charlie thought he would do anything, anything to hear Larry say just one word to him.
"Quid erat demonstratum," Larry said softly. He shook his head again and walked out the door without a backward glance.
There wasn't exactly any such thing as after hours at Ace Bail-Bond, but it was late. The boss himself buzzed Don in. Gus was waiting at the door when Don stepped through, and paused before locking up to look Don up and down, one eyebrow raised.
Don gritted his teeth and tried not to breathe too deeply. As long as he was careful how he moved, the ribs didn't bother him too much, and he was going to take a few days off after this and heal up.
"The desk sergeant in Booking called me," Gus said, heading back to his office. Don followed, trying not to limp. "Said you brought Forrester in and he was going to the cells by way of the infirmary, and you'd probably be taking a trip through the ER at Receiving before I saw you."
"Yeah, well, then it would've been another twelve hours before you saw me," Don muttered. "ER's got better things to do than patch me up."
Gus snorted. "Hey, Jake, come on. I know we don't exactly go way back, but I ain't dicked you over yet. Your money woulda been here tomorrow."
Don shrugged, tired and irritated. He'd been up a day and a half straight, between the mess Forrester had made of him and the fact that he didn't trust Forrester out of his sight for a second. "Well, I'm here now."
"Yeah, yeah," Gus said, shaking his head. "I figured you would be, I got it for you."
Gus unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out an envelope, but he stayed behind the desk, not holding it out. Don wasn't going to reach for it. He stood his ground and waited.
"Tell me one thing," Gus said, gesturing with the envelope. Don didn't let his eyes follow it.
"Why do you work like this? You got talent, you're organized. You could pick up a partner, you could run a whole team. You could at least call in the goddamn cops when you're in over your head, but you're out there solo going after every violent offender you can get a lead on."
Don shrugged, and now he let his eyes follow the money, a silent lie. This wasn't about the money. He wasn't doing this to pay the rent on his shitty apartment or buy a bigger truck or a better gun. He and Gus both knew that, but he'd be damned if he'd say it out loud to somebody who had no business asking.
"It's a living."
Gus shook his head. "Hell, man, the way you do it it's suicide by bail-jumper, just waiting to happen."
Don met Gus's eyes and held his gaze. The word was supposed to scare him, he knew; the idea was supposed to scare him. Dying was supposed to scare him. It didn't, and as far as Don was concerned that just made one less thing to worry about.
"Yeah, well, it hasn't happened yet, so you still have to pay me."
Gus finally handed over the envelope, and Don let himself look away from the honest concern in Gus's eyes, slipping the money into an inside pocket.
"All right, Jake. It's your funeral."
Charlie kicked a space clear on the carpet and knelt down, reaching for the twisted and broken remains of a pair of glasses. He thought they'd been in the nightstand drawer; all he really remembered was the furious delight he'd taken in stomping on them. He'd had a headache, and he remembered thinking that Don would have a headache too, without his glasses, and that it served him right.
There was no way of knowing. The glasses had been here, after all. Charlie had never seen Don wear a pair or seem to need them. He couldn't imagine it, any more than he could imagine Don in a suit, flashing a badge, being one of the good guys. His Don was one of the bad guys--the best of them.
Charlie picked up the largest remaining fragment from the shattered lenses, trying to gauge the power of magnification, but it was too badly scratched to see through.
He dropped the fragment when a knock sounded on the door, and barely managed to get to his feet before the door opened. Larry stood on the threshold for a moment, his eyes sweeping the room and giving Charlie a moment to stare at him. The bruise was dark purple-red, covering the corner of his mouth down to his jaw, and a black line of dried blood bisected his lower lip.
"Well, this surpasses description," Larry remarked, finally meeting Charlie's gaze.
Charlie flinched, feeling naked and exposed. The room was filled with Don's destroyed possessions, the windowpane cracked, the walls variously dented and battered. No one was supposed to see this. No one was supposed to know, or let him know they knew. This had been his secret.
But he couldn't keep it from Larry--he'd revealed the essence of it to Larry yesterday in the garage, and now here Larry was in the doorway. Charlie couldn't even look at Larry and be angry to be intruded upon; he just felt sick, and as desperately eager to make it right as he was certain that he couldn't. Larry could ask anything of him now, do anything to Charlie he liked. Charlie was entirely at his mercy.
Larry had been right about him the day before: quid erat demonstratum. QED. Literally which has been proven--he remembered sitting in Larry's office, back when he'd still called Larry Dr. Fleinhardt, listening to Larry explain that it was just a Latinate way of saying I told you so.
"Yeah," Charlie said, looking down at his hands, which had done all of this, wrecked everything in this room, Larry not excepted. "Larry, I'm--I'm so sorry--"
He glanced up and Larry was stepping gingerly inside, shaking his head. "Charles, it wasn't your--"
"Not guilty by reason of insanity?" Charlie blurted, and Larry stopped short.
Charlie had to look away again, looking around the room. It was evidence of what was wrong with him, written out as surely as if he'd put it all down in chalk, and Larry still stood there and tried to say it wasn't his fault. Would they lock him up in a hospital room? Drug him? Restrain him? Would being a patient be any different from being a prisoner? Charlie shivered but kept still. There was no point running from this. He wouldn't get anywhere on his own.
Larry's feet entered his line of sight, and Larry said softly, "Look at me, Charles."
Charlie obeyed, gritting his teeth and meeting Larry's eyes--but Larry's gaze skipped sideways, to the scar beside his eye.
"Did you have a headache after that happened?" Larry asked, raising a hand to gesture toward it.
Charlie frowned, baffled by the non sequitur--he hadn't had a concussion, and a concussion months before couldn't have explained what he'd done yesterday--but he remembered waking up to Don wiping the blood from his face, remembered the staggering pain.
He nodded.
"Could you work afterward?" Larry asked, meeting Charlie's eyes again. "Or did you have to take it easy for a while?"
Don had fed him painkillers, laying the pill on Charlie's tongue and holding the cup of water for him to wash it down. He'd lain warm and close beside Don for hours, reading comic books and dozing. Maybe he could have worked, but he hadn't. Charlie bit his lip hard, swept with an impossible longing to be back there, back in that basement if only Don would be there with him--if only it could be other people who hurt him, and not him who hurt people he cared for.
Larry had asked him a question. Charlie had to answer it. "I rested."
Larry nodded, looking so much like he'd expected that answer that Charlie felt a moment's unreasoning panic that he knew all of it, knew that Don had been there and what Charlie had thought and what had, eventually, followed.
But Larry's gaze shifted again, down to Charlie's left arm. "What about your elbow, I can tell that's been injured. Dislocated?"
Charlie nodded numbly.
"And after that happened, did you spring right up and get back to work?"
He'd tried, once Williamson finally put him back into his room, but every time he jostled his elbow he came close to vomiting from the lingering pain. When he did manage to lose himself in work for a few minutes, he thoughtlessly moved his left arm and nearly passed out, his vision going dark and narrow and the ground seeming to tilt under his feet.
"I couldn't," he whispered. There was some pattern Larry was trying to point out to him, but Charlie's mind stayed frozen, unable to grasp it.
Larry was nodding.
"Charles," he said, and his hands came up, palms open. Charlie watched them approach him and managed to suppress his flinch almost entirely when they settled on either side of his head, warm and heavy and still. He couldn't pull away from Larry now, whatever he was doing, whatever he wanted.
"Charles," Larry repeated. "I do not know the entirety of what you endured, and I am not asking you to tell me, but the evidence clearly indicates that your mind has suffered terrible injuries."
He was holding Charlie's gaze steadily, and Charlie couldn't look away, though meeting Larry's intent and earnest gaze was like staring into the sun or the desert wind. His eyes prickled, feeling burned, but he couldn't so much as blink.
"You're not so much ill as hurt, do you understand? You have sustained serious trauma, and that is why your mind doesn't work the way it should right now, just like your arm didn't when your elbow had been dislocated. You have been very badly hurt."
Charlie bit down hard on his lip, trying to shake his head--not that, not his brain, they'd never hit him much in the head, never risked destroying what made him valuable, it couldn't be that--
"Listen to me. You will recover, but you require a doctor's care, and I am not going to watch you suffer untreated any longer. Do you understand? You must see a doctor, Charles, that is no longer negotiable."
Charlie felt tears spill of his eyes as his vision blurred, but he still couldn't break Larry's gaze. Larry smiled a little, though the motion looked painful for his battered mouth. Larry's thumb brushed the wetness away from under his eye.
"You still have choices," Larry said softly, though he held Charlie's gaze fixed, and didn't let go of him. "We can look into options, treatments--"
"Six two six four three nine one four one one," Charlie said softly. The time had come, like she'd said it would. Kelley had known, as his father had, as Larry had. Everyone had known but him. It was almost a relief, to be in on the secret at last.
Larry seemed to understand. He nodded, lowering his hands. "All right, then. You have a phone call to make."
"I don't want drugs," Charlie blurted, when the silence had stretched too long for him to bear anymore.
Kelley smiled at that, her eyebrows drawing down at the same time. "Well, good, because I don't generally prescribe them before I've had time to arrive at a diagnosis."
Charlie frowned, hunching lower in his seat, wrapping his arms around his stomach. "You said you knew what was going on with me."
Kelley grimaced, raising one hand and flipping it palm-up to palm-down. "I have a really good idea, yeah. Your symptoms--your difficulty concentrating, headaches, anxiety, your feelings of constant threat, your insomnia and nightmares--those are all consistent with what's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Have you heard of that?"
Charlie shrugged, then nodded. The name sounded familiar--from movies, maybe, something remote but dramatic.
"Something bad happens to you and you never get over it," Charlie muttered, ducking his head. She'd said she could help.
"No," Kelley said firmly. "Charlie, in nearly all cases this is a temporary condition. Medication can be prescribed to help deal with some specific symptom--depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance--to make it possible for you to cope while this is going on. But you are going to get better."
Charlie looked up at her warily. She couldn't guarantee that, there was no way she could guarantee that, and if she wanted him to believe she could he was walking out now. "Is that a promise?"
Kelley sighed. "Call it a forecast. The odds are with you."
Charlie nodded and looked away. At least she didn't lie.
She didn't say anything more and neither did Charlie. He wasn't going to break the silence this time. He could wait. Apparently waiting was all he could do.
"Charlie," Kelley said gently, "I would normally tell you that we could talk about anything you want to--the weather or sports or what you had for breakfast this morning."
Charlie met her gaze, waiting for the but.
"Normally I'd want to let you get comfortable with me," Kelley said. "But I think that you're not going to trust me until you're good and ready to trust me, and I think the only reason I'm here is that you trust everyone else even less, including yourself."
Charlie thought of Don's room, Larry's face, and nodded shallowly.
"So just tell me," she said, her mouth creeping toward a smile, a little exasperation leaking into her voice.
"Charlie, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but here's what I think. I think there's something in particular that you're not telling me or anyone else, something you think you can't tell anyone. Why don't we just get that on the table, right now, get it over with, and go on from there."
Charlie studied her. She'd spent the first ten minutes of their scheduled hour explaining to him all the reasons why she wouldn't tell anyone what he told her, under any circumstances. There were rules, and oaths, and laws, and no other patient would ever trust her again, so she put her work on the line when she promised confidentiality. That Charlie could respect.
Still... "What if I told you something that disturbed you, personally?"
"Then maybe I'd talk about it with my therapist," she said, throwing her hands up. "But I wouldn't use your name, and she wouldn't tell on me anymore than I'd tell on you. You're stalling, Dr. Eppes."
Charlie looked down at his knees. He found himself remembering vividly the moment after he'd asked Don, lying there with him, already naked, already exposed. He'd begged Don to take advantage, to give him something to hold on to, and then he'd held his breath and waited. And Don had... Don had...
Charlie breathed in.
"I had sex with Don," Charlie said, and when he looked up Kelley's face was intent, showing no reaction.
"My brother," he added, in case she'd missed the implication.
Kelley nodded, her expression unchanged. "All right. And how is that relevant now?"
Charlie stared. He could feel his mouth hanging open, and struggled for words. "How is--how is it relevant? I had sex with my brother, and you said--you said you knew there was something I wasn't telling!"
"I said I thought there was," Kelley corrected blandly. "And I understand that this is something you haven't told anyone else, and I'm glad you told me. But what I want to know is what you're not telling anyone else. Is it just the fact of what happened that you can't talk about?"
"I can't--" Charlie looked around blindly, but his father was safely away, down the street at Stan's. "I can't tell my father, it would--I can't tell him what we--I can't."
Kelley nodded slowly. "Is that all you want to tell, though, just what you did? Or is there some way it makes you feel now, that you can't talk about?"
Charlie stared at his hands. She knew somehow, and Charlie was scared that if he looked her in the eye right now she'd see everything, know every last detail just as she knew this.
There were so many things he felt and couldn't say. It wasn't just that he missed Don, wanted to know he was safe; his father missed Don and wanted to know he was safe. Charlie missed all of Don, missed his body, his arms, his presence, the way he slept in the same bed, the way he was always there, right there. It wasn't even about the sex, exactly, specifically, but Charlie was pretty sure it went far beyond the way a brother was supposed to miss a brother. To tell would give away too much about how things really were, how much he remembered, how bad things were and how Don had been the only good part.
"I want him back," Charlie whispered. "I just... I really want him back."
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