Charlie was on the road barely an hour before he neared his first stop. He pulled out a printout from the glove compartment to navigate by, but he had it nearly memorized anyway, and the map was no help with parallel parking. His shirt (Don's shirt) was soaked with sweat by the time he finished that, and Charlie had to dig in his bag for a button-down, wrinkled but not visibly stained, to shrug on over it.
He stood on the sidewalk, looking around for a moment. Easily three-quarters of the people walking around were instantly identifiable as undergraduates, and most of the rest were obviously grad students or professors, except for the knot of women he recognized after a moment's scrutiny as librarians. He'd parked across the street from a storefront whose signs proclaimed an arcade downstairs and University administrative offices upstairs, with a comic book store and a Starbucks crammed in at the sides.
He thought That'll be convenient and then turned away, shaking his head. Convenient was going to be the whole point, if he could carry this off. He walked down the block and took a right at the Chinese restaurant, crossed the street and was abruptly on campus, facing the doors of the building that housed the Math Department. It took him a few minutes of wandering--through an atrium and a study space and down a few boring hallways--before he found an open door with a mathematician behind it.
He was young--about Charlie's own age--which meant he'd probably been on faculty for a year or two at most. Charlie glanced at the nameplate beside the door, but the name wasn't familiar. "Doctor Jasper?"
Jasper looked up, startled. "Yes, what--uh, do I know you?"
Charlie smiled sheepishly and took a step inside. "We may have met, but I don't remember either. I'm Charlie Eppes."
Jasper blinked a couple of times and then stood up slowly and came around the desk to shake Charlie's hand. "Doctor Eppes, of course. I've seen pictures, and heard a lot about you, since..."
"Ah," Charlie said, taking his hand back. Notorious might be almost as useful as famous at this point, and it only hurt his pride. He could deal with that, to get what he wanted.
Jasper blushed. "I mean, and I know of your work, of course, also--in fact I did some work on the Eppes Convergence for my undergraduate thesis, not that it was anything, um--am I babbling?"
Charlie grinned. "A little. I was just in the neighborhood. I'm actually thinking of relocating, so I've been on a little road trip."
"Oh," Jasper said. He stood a moment in silence, obviously searching for an appropriate reaction. "Well. Would you like a tour?"
Don waited a couple of days, until he and Charlie were both well away from Detroit. Charlie would be halfway back to California by now--he'd hinted about stops on the way back, something to give a plausible reason for the sudden trip, but if he'd been planning to be home in four or five days he wouldn't be dawdling too much. Don, meanwhile, was in the part of Pennsylvania between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and he was starting to get the joke.
Charlie had managed to almost entirely avoid mentioning their father during the time he'd spent holed up in Don's apartment. When Charlie did mention him, it was so carefully casual that the unspoken reproach rang in Don's ears like a shout. Don hadn't spoken to his father in six months, had left him without any idea of whether his son was dead or alive.
Don had spent six months not entirely sure that he was still his father's son anymore, not sure his father would want to know. But Charlie had come after him and that changed everything, and suddenly this phone call was long, long overdue.
Don was keeping an eye on the pawn shop across the street from this payphone, and he had time to kill. He shrugged his shoulders, shifted his weight, checking the location of his papers and his weapon and his zip-strips, and then he pulled a phone card from his pocket. It had been purchased with cash, in Ohio. He followed the interminable instructions and then dialed ten familiar digits.
He stared across the street, listening to the phone ring. He was trying to figure out whether to leave a voice mail, and what he could possibly say, when it picked up.
"Hello?"
His father sounded tired, wary. Don wondered who he feared might be calling, and how much of that anxiety he was personally responsible for. He wondered if--how much--his father's hair was whiter now than it had been a year ago, and he felt suddenly, sharply homesick. He missed the house, missed sitting around on summer evenings in the armchairs that were almost as old as he was, drinking beer and giving his father and his baby brother an only slightly edited version of the events of his day.
"Hello? Who is this?"
Don swallowed hard, blinked a few times quickly and kept his eyes steady on the door of the pawnshop.
"Hi, Dad. It's... it's me."
Charlie had a joke ready about Xeno's Paradox and LA traffic, but when he got home his father was sitting on the porch. The newspaper was folded untidily beside him, as though he'd read every page--he must have had time to, between the time Charlie had initially expected to be home and the time he'd actually gotten there. Charlie stepped out of the car still meaning to make his joke, and then his father stood up and smiled, looking so relieved.
Charlie didn't think about it; he just dropped his backpack and ran, nearly tackling his father flat on the porch with a hug. His father laughed, hugging him back. "Charlie. You're home."
"I'm home," Charlie echoed, and he tried not to think about how that might be changing. But his father pushed him back, keeping a grip on his shoulders and looking him in the eye, and Charlie realized there was no point not thinking about it.
"You had some phone calls while you were gone," his father said. "I took messages for you."
Charlie swallowed. He'd expected it to happen fast, but... somehow he hadn't thought about them calling the house, about his father answering the phone. "Oh?"
"Mm," his father said. "The Math Department heads from the University of Chicago, NYU, Columbia, Iowa, Cornell, and MIT. And three different people from the University of Michigan, one of whom suggested that I should fly out there for a visit. They all seemed very eager to talk to you."
Bingo.
"Oh," Charlie said. He stared down at his feet, but when he looked up again, his father was still watching him, looking only a little sad. Looking like he understood, and Charlie had nothing to explain.
"Yeah, I should probably return some of those. You took messages?"
"I did," his father said gently, steering him inside. While Charlie had his back to him, after they were both safely inside the house, his father added, "Oh, and--your brother called."
Charlie froze, staring at the far wall, and he wondered if his father had done that on purpose, waited until his back would be turned so he wouldn't see Charlie's face. He got himself under control, and then turned.
"I'm sorry I missed him," Charlie said. "How did he sound?"
His father studied him for a moment, and Charlie looked back as steadily as he could. It had been days. There was nothing to see, and he wouldn't give anything away, not now, not this close to making it all work.
His father smiled a little, giving Charlie a knowing look that was just knowing enough: just enough of the truth to make him happy, none of the truth that would hurt him.
"Better," his father said, sounding pleased, like he knew Charlie was responsible for that--like he was glad that Charlie was responsible for it. "He sounded better."
Charlie had met Don at the door of his hotel room wearing Don's t-shirt and a smile, the top button of his jeans undone and his feet bare. Don hadn't really seen much but Charlie, didn't actually look around the room until later, when they were lying on the bed together, catching their breath. Charlie was still wearing the smile, and not much else.
Don was smiling, too, until he caught sight of the pile of Charlie's stuff draped over the chair and stacked on the desk. Not just a backpack and laptop case: there was a garment bag, suit tossed carelessly on top of it, obviously already worn. Papers were stacked all over the desk, red Post-It flags decorating their edges.
"Charlie." Don didn't look at him.
He could feel Charlie tense, closed his eyes for a second to picture Charlie's face, the smile fading, the way he'd bite his lip.
When he opened his eyes, Charlie had his cheek propped on one fist, meeting his eyes steadily.
"Yeah," Charlie said. "I'm moving."
Don had to look away, sinking his teeth into his own lip. Charlie had all the certainty of Williamson's genius, and none of the fear. Don felt left behind somehow, with his bruised knees and scraped wrist, all the doubts and arguments--all the fear for both of them--that Charlie's steady gaze wouldn't admit.
"Charlie," Don repeated, and he could hear the helplessness creeping into his tone.
"Hey," Charlie said softly. "Don, I haven't--that's my contract and everything, nothing's signed yet. I'm being courted by a dozen schools, they've been coming out of the woodwork since I started hinting I wanted to move. I flew out to Cornell last week, I visited Chicago and Iowa on my way back from seeing you, after I came to Michigan. But this is a top-ten math school, just like CalSci. It's not going to raise any eyebrows if I relocate here, right? I won't be putting you in danger?"
Don's mouth opened and closed. Charlie couldn't--fucking shouldn't--be worrying about putting him in danger. But Charlie wasn't in any danger anymore. Don was the one living under an alias. Charlie hadn't done anything wrong. Don rubbed his eyes, trying to think, but he couldn't get past it.
"You're going to move out of the house?"
He felt Charlie's shrug as a shift of weight through the mattress, heard the rustle against the sheets.
"I'm thirty," Charlie said, his voice warm and wry. "It's probably time, don't you think?"
Don shook his head a little--the house, CalSci, that was all part of what Charlie was supposed to be able to go back to. Even if he was still with Don in some way, some of the time, even if he couldn't--didn't want to--leave that behind, still, he should have his home.
"It's not the only place I can be at home anymore," Charlie said, like he'd heard that. Don couldn't resist meeting Charlie's eyes then. He looked a little sad, yeah, but not--not wrenched, not like when he was thirteen and crying all the way to the airport, no matter how much he wanted to go to Princeton.
"I've been there for months, Don. This isn't a snap decision. It's just not the same, you know? It's not where I've always been, anymore. For a long time I didn't even feel safe there."
Don winced. He'd left Charlie alone, surrounded by people who didn't know, people he didn't remember. And still, after all this time, he wasn't sure he could have done it any other way.
Charlie tipped closer to him, nudging one leg between Don's, kissing his cheek and nuzzling at his throat. "This'll be okay, right? Close enough to visit, not close enough to draw attention to you. And I bet the Detroit field office has better things to do than keep tabs on me."
Don sighed. That much was true, and had figured into his own decision to come here. "Seriously, though? Michigan? It really does get cold here. You hate being cold."
"I'll buy a coat," Charlie said softly. "And a hat, and mittens, and boots, and an electric blanket, the whole deal."
There was a moment there, where Charlie didn't say you could keep me warm and Don didn't promise he'd be there to do it. He could feel the words on his tongue, and he just couldn't say it, not yet, not when he could barely grasp the idea of Charlie being within fifty miles of him all the time. As badly as he wanted Charlie, as badly as he should want this, if this was going to be his life--for a few awful seconds, the idea of Charlie here made his throat close, made his heart beat fast with the same old trapped sensation, locked in with Charlie and nowhere to go. But Don took a deep breath and reminded himself it was just tonight, just visits, just sometimes, just Charlie.
Charlie didn't seem to notice what Don didn't, couldn't say, or didn't seem to mind. He shifted away a little, stretching. "Anyway, I think I'm going to fit right in at the university. I mean, you know who their math department's famous for, don't you?"
Don blinked, staring at the ceiling. "I'm, uh--"
Charlie was smiling in his peripheral vision, telegraphing the joke a mile away. Don played along anyway. "I'm not really up on my mathematicians who aren't you."
"How about your criminal masterminds?" Charlie was almost laughing now, an edge of hysteria in his voice, and Don remembered he wasn't the only one who'd been trapped, who couldn't quite believe he was free. "The Unabomber's an alum."
On the second day of packing, Charlie got over-confident and followed his dad when he headed into the basement to sort through the boxes down there. Charlie didn't like it--he was perfectly aware that he didn't like basements, he wasn't stupid--but he was walking down, one step at a time, following his dad and breathing just like he'd practiced. He was on the seventh step when he hit the temperature differential between upstairs and downstairs, the basement chill suddenly striking his face.
The next thing Charlie knew he was standing in the driveway, arms wrapped around himself as the sky above and the concrete under his feet both radiated the blistering summer heat of a cloudless day.
"Okay," he said, and the word came out thin and breathless, and there was a bitter taste in the back of his mouth, all too familiar. "Okay, well. Well."
"Charlie," his dad said, from a safe distance. Charlie looked up to see him standing on the grass at the edge of the driveway, holding a glass of water in one hand.
"Time for a break, hm?" He came closer once Charlie had seen him, holding out the glass.
Charlie accepted it with a shaky smile, and took a long drink of water.
"Sorry," he said, staring at the glass in his hand, at their shadows on the concrete, anything but the way his father had come to expect no better than this of him. "I thought I could--I really didn't think about that enough, I guess. I haven't been down there since I got home. I should have known. I could hire some movers to bring everything up, maybe."
"Maybe," his dad agreed. "There's not as much down there as there used to be. I can probably handle most of it."
Charlie frowned as he looked up to meet his dad's gaze. He remembered the basement clearly enough, and it had always been crowded with things, the detritus of a house lived in for three decades.
It was his dad's turn to look away. "It was just me in the house, while you were gone. I knew I couldn't stay and rattle around by myself forever. I gave away most of your mother's things, and a lot of other junk that was taking up space all these years. Nothing of yours or Donnie's, of course, but..."
Charlie blinked. It wasn't like he hadn't been faced with the prospect once before--wasn't like they weren't both in the process of doing so now, but it still came as a shock somehow. "You were getting ready to move."
His father met his eyes and nodded.
Charlie drank more water, and looked out at the yard. He'd told Don it wasn't home anymore, and it wasn't like it used to be, like it felt in his memories--but it was still familiar, more familiar than anywhere else. It was much more home than the house he'd walked through once last week, after peering at dozens of photos and a few minutes of grainy video in the realtor's emails. He tried to imagine what it would have been like if his father had already been gone when Don had brought him home, if the house had been empty, or--
Charlie nearly choked on a laugh.
His father raised his eyebrows, waiting to be let in on the joke.
"Can you imagine," Charlie managed. "If somebody else had been living here, when..."
Charlie waved his hand toward the garage, the place Don had left him, and his father's eyes went wide.
"Well," his father murmured. "Wouldn't that have been a mess."
Charlie nodded, his laughter dying down as he realized exactly what a mess it would have been. He'd been lucky to wake up with his father there, so enormously lucky. He looked away, thinking of what he was about to do, what it would mean to his father that he was leaving again. It was his own choice this time, that was all.
"I'm going to miss it," Charlie said softly. It was the first time he'd admitted that, really. Ever since he'd told his dad he was putting the house on the market he'd stuck to being perfectly gung ho, perfectly confident, just like he'd been with Don. Show no fear, no hesitation, and you might make it through alive.
But this was his father. His home. It struck him again, what he was giving up. Don was worth it, but the sacrifice still cost something.
Charlie looked up, at his father still standing there, still saying nothing. "I'm going to miss you."
His father smiled. "You'll be all right, Charlie. And you can always come back if you want."
Charlie bit his lip, nodding. He didn't want to consider that eventuality, what would have to happen--could happen--that would make it no longer worthwhile to be out there. Don was worth going, even if it hurt, even if he would miss it. He'd be with Don. He'd miss this place, miss his father, but he wouldn't need to come back, even though he could.
"Though not back here," his father added thoughtfully. "The people who you're selling to would probably object."
Gus handed him the sheet on the next bail jumper he had in mind, and Don leaned against his desk and stared at it. It was a standard form, picture and last-known and rap sheet, familiar as everything about his new life.
He couldn't make his eyes focus on the words. He knew what they'd say--Gus had given him a pretty good idea before he'd come in, and the fact that Gus had called him in was a pretty good tip to begin with. Multiple homicide, priors, believed armed and dangerous. Don's last fresh set of stitches had barely healed, and still pulled a little whenever he raised his right arm higher than his shoulder.
That wasn't keeping him from reading the sheet, though. The problem today was that he was tired, so stupidly fucking tired coffee couldn't touch it. He'd woken up in the middle of the night from a nightmare that didn't make much sense when he tried to piece it back together, trivial things made terrifying in the night. He hadn't been able to get back to sleep afterward, and found himself on the couch under Charlie's blanket, feeling like an idiot and watching the Weather Channel, wishing he dared to call, just to hear his brother's voice, just to know Charlie was safe.
The nightmares were getting more and more frequent. It had been a week now since he'd had a solid night's sleep, way worse than after he'd first come to Detroit, and even then it had just been waking up all the time, not knowing where he was. He'd always been thinking he heard something, wondering where Charlie was.
The nightmares hadn't started until he'd gone to meet Charlie at that hotel. Until Charlie told him what was happening next.
He used to have bad dreams all the time, before. When Charlie was missing, when he was trying to find him. Back when he remembered how to be scared. Back when he had something to lose.
Don wasn't stupid, mostly, except compared to Charlie. He knew what it meant now, he knew it was a good thing in a way, having something to lose. It was just that it was fucking scary, after all this time, and he was so fucking tired his eyes were crossing. He rubbed one hand over them and sighed.
"Yeah, I can bring him in for you," Don muttered, hoping it wasn't a chick. He was pretty sure Gus would have said if it was a chick, though.
Gus just grunted.
Don cleared his throat. "It, uh. It looks like a two-man job, though. At least."
Gus didn't make a sound, and Don dropped his hand and looked at the bondsman--at his boss, sort of, and almost a friend, after all this time, if Don was going to admit that he had a life, the kind that included a job and a boss and maybe friends. He had to have room for that, if he had room for Charlie.
Gus was just watching, with a carefully neutral expression.
"It'd be kind of risky, trying to bring him in solo," Don said, and looked away again. "I've been thinking I should find a partner. Maybe get a team together. Maybe you could recommend somebody?"
Gus didn't say a word, not I told you so, not finally. Gus just laughed. It was a huge, delighted sound, and he was still laughing as he got up and got out a file, and tossed it down next to Don. He was still laughing as Don flipped it open and found names and info on half a dozen bounty hunters, and the sound shook something loose in his chest, weighted with exhaustion and fear, too heavy to carry alone.
Don lifted his head and smiled back.
Charlie watched carefully as the students left--which ones darted out through the back, and which were willing to come near enough to leave through the front. A few made eye contact as they did so, but none stayed to ask questions. Charlie spotted the man lingering by the door, letting the students rush out before he came in, but classified him at a glance as not a threat and, more or less synonymously, faculty. He took the liberty of ignoring the stranger while he jotted down a few notes.
"Dr. Eppes?"
Charlie nodded distractedly, "Sorry, I just need to get these down before I--there." Charlie folded the note and set it aside.
The faculty member smiled, raising his eyebrows. "Important observations from the first day of classes?"
"A little bet with myself," Charlie said, shrugging. "Which ones are going to drop the class by the end of the day."
"Majors usually don't drop until after the first quiz, do they?"
Charlie grinned. "I went into some depth on what I've been up to lately, since I'm new at the university. Among other things it's only fair to let them know their instructor's still being treated for PTSD."
Among other things, but that was between him and his therapist.
His probably-colleague (no one from Mathematics, he was pretty certain, nor anyone from the Psych side of the building--he had a reassuringly hard-science air about him) looked enlightened, so Charlie's reputation preceded him at least that far. "You'll make up the drops in morbidly curious auditors, you know."
"And they will learn some matrix algebra." Charlie tried out a smile. "Everybody wins."
The other man smiled back. "I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself. Sam Peterson, from the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences Department. I teach an introductory course down the hall, I thought I'd see if I could catch you."
"And you did," Charlie pointed out, looking down to gather up his papers. Space Sciences. He could kind of see where this was going--his new department head had assured him he'd have plenty of opportunities for interesting collaborations like he'd done at CalSci. Space work, God, it had been a while since he'd had a chance at something big and beautiful like that.
"I did. You can probably guess the next part. I've got a project I'd really like to bring you in on."
Charlie nodded, forced himself to spit out the words. He wondered how often he'd have to repeat them before people knew to stop asking. "I have to tell you, though--after everything that happened, my security clearance has been permanently revoked. I can't work on anything sensitive."
Sam snorted. "Luckily the weather's still in the public domain, Dr. Eppes."
Charlie looked up. "The weather?"
Sam nodded. "We're working on improving storm prediction models--tornadoes, mostly. I know everyone's interested in hurricanes, but we're talking about predicting two days in advance versus about ten minutes. There's a lot of room for improvement in tornadoes."
Charlie slung his bag onto his shoulder, trying to remember--he'd been interested in hurricanes himself, but Sam had a point. "I--I don't know a lot about tornadoes, but I've been interested in super-complex systems lately. Have you considered using multidimensional--"
"Whoa, whoa, I'm the weather guy, not math. But you're interested?"
Charlie thought of the news pictures, towns flattened, survivors standing around looking shocked and helpless. He could help. The storm season was only halfway over.
"How soon can you get me some data to work with?"
Charlie could have biked between his house and campus--it wasn't that far, really, mostly downhill on the way home, and in the first week of September there was already a promise of fall in the air by Charlie's Californian standards. They'd given him a parking space right along with his office, though, and the structure was just across the street from the Math Department, with a community police post on the first floor. Every day, Charlie crossed the street in the middle of the block under the benign gaze of the officer in the parked patrol car. Every day he thought that maybe he'd take his bike tomorrow. He just hadn't yet.
Driving down his own narrow street, with cars parked on both sides, required some concentration. It wasn't until he was pulling into his own driveway that he realized there was a car there already.
A truck.
Don's truck, though he hardly recognized it without the layer of dust and dirt.
Charlie parked behind him and sat staring for a few minutes. He'd given Don a key the first time they'd met after Charlie moved, at a safely neutral location. Charlie had visited Don's apartment a few times since then--coming and going during daylight, according to Don's strict instructions, and only when Don was there waiting for him--but Don had never said anything about coming here. Charlie hadn't wanted to push it. The key was an open invitation, and they both knew it.
And now Don had finally taken him up on it, and Charlie was sitting in the driveway worrying about what it meant. He smiled at himself, and then had a moment of real worry--but no. If Don were in any kind of trouble, he wouldn't bring it to Charlie, and if Charlie were in danger, Don wouldn't have just waited here for him. Unless it wasn't Don driving Don's truck...
Charlie shook the thought off and got out of the car, into the late-summer sun. He did glance into Don's truck as he passed, and was instantly reassured--there was still a drift of fast-food wrappers in the rear footwell, some of them the very same ones Charlie had seen the last time he went somewhere with Don. No one had cleaned up Don's truck to hide signs of a struggle. It was just Don, and he'd just washed the car before he came to visit, out of the blue.
Charlie let himself in the front door, and smiled again. Don's wallet and keys were on the table by the door, where he'd be able to find them. Charlie dropped his backpack beside it on the floor, and set down his own keys next to Don's. He stood for a moment, enjoying the tableau, and then headed into the quiet house, looking for his brother.
The first floor--living room, dining room, kitchen, all packed into a space half the size of the house where he'd grown up--was empty and undisturbed. Charlie glanced once at the closed basement door, and then headed upstairs.
It was hotter upstairs, the humidity in the air more obvious in the dim, narrow hallway. The bathroom door was open, but only partway, not pressed back fully to the wall as Charlie always made sure it was. The shower curtain was pulled shut, like Charlie never left it, and a damp towel hung neatly on the rack. The door to the guest room stood perfectly open as always, but the door to his own room was half-shut. Charlie smiled and stepped through.
Don was sprawled out on Charlie's bed, just a sheet pulled up to his waist, wearing nothing else. His hair was still damp, dark against Charlie's pillow. He was lying face down, his back rising and falling slowly. Charlie catalogued the familiar scars and noted that there were no new ones; Don's skin was as unmarked as his truck, clean and whole.
Charlie stood and watched for a moment, feeling a funny kind of déjà vu. He remembered the first time he'd watched Don sleep back in that basement, when Don had been a stranger--and yet Don had never been a stranger. He was the furthest thing from a stranger now, sleeping in Charlie's bedroom in the September heat and sunshine.
Then Charlie shook off the memory, kicked off his sandals and peeled off his t-shirt. He dropped his jeans and stepped out of them, the air comfortably warm on his skin as he knelt on the edge of the bed, looking down at Don for another lingering moment. His brother was gorgeous and safe and his.
Charlie was reaching out to touch him, shifting his weight closer, when Don startled awake. He pulled back to lie on his side, pushing up on one elbow, just out of Charlie's reach.
Charlie saw recognition arrive, but a flash of wariness lingered after it. Don didn't know whether he was really welcome here, even now, wasn't sure he'd been right to come here. But when he smiled, Charlie couldn't help smiling back.
"Hey," Don muttered, his voice low and warm with sleep. His cheek was pink, creased from the pillow. "Somebody's been sleeping in your bed."
Charlie snorted. "Isn't that my line?"
"Not if I beat you to it," Don said laying his head back down on the pillow and raising his arm, silently inviting Charlie under it. Charlie glanced down to where the sheet was riding low on Don's bare hip, and slipped his boxers off before he settled down onto the bed, scooting closer.
Don pulled him in until they were skin to skin. Charlie could feel himself starting to sweat everywhere they touched, and he closed his eyes, basking in the heat and the weight of Don's touch, the soap-mint-skin smell of him in Charlie's bed.
"First day of school, right?" Don murmured. "Everything go okay?"
Charlie frowned and lifted his head, looking Don in the eye. "I didn't tell you when classes started."
Don grinned. "Charlie, they post it online. I would've come and watched, but I thought I'd be kind of conspicuous with twenty-three kids in the room. Teach a big lecture next semester, okay?"
Charlie huffed a laugh, squirming over on his back. Don moved with him, leaning against Charlie without quite holding him down.
"Don't tempt me," Charlie sighed. "I've already got a reputation."
He raised his hands and ticked off points on his fingers. "Kidnapped last year--probably crazy--probably still almost as brilliant as he used to be--has issues with courses offered to freshmen and non-majors. One more rant and I'm going to wind up on a curriculum committee."
Don shifted closer, resting more weight against Charlie, his knee pushing Charlie's legs apart. His lips brushed Charlie's throat as he spoke. "Have to tempt you some other way, then."
Don was half-hard against him, and Charlie's skin had been humming with anticipation since before he walked into the room. It wasn't going to take a hell of a lot of temptation--and still, Charlie thought there was something a little guarded in the lowness of Don's voice, the tension of his muscles. Even though it had been weeks since they saw each other, even though Charlie had already been nearly naked by the time Don woke up, Don was still not entirely sure he was allowed to start this, ask for this.
Charlie tilted his head back, arching up into the press of Don's body, letting Don feel him respond before he tried to say anything. "You can have first move."
Don's breath puffed against his skin, a silent laugh or sigh. "Because you'll win anyway, huh?"
Charlie shrugged awkwardly under Don, and said, "You did beat me once--"
Don kissed him, then, finally, and Charlie let his lips part, let Don have what he liked. Charlie set his hand on Don's side, putting just enough energy into kissing back to let Don know he was enjoying it. It was too hot to work hard, and Don had things under control, kissing Charlie slowly and thoroughly. He shifted against Charlie, rocking down against him, from time to time, but he was utterly focused on kissing, and Charlie had no objections. His arousal gathered slow and hot and lazy in his groin, sensation zinging all over his skin.
They had time for this, all the time they could want in Charlie's bed, in Charlie's house, in the sunshine. It didn't matter much what came after this; Charlie really would win anyway. They both would.
They kissed for a long time, until the sheets were damp with sweat, until Charlie's mouth was starting to feel raw and overstimulated. He was hard, pushing up lazily against Don's thigh, but also starting to wonder if they couldn't put off actually having sex until after a nap.
Don shifted sideways, settling fully on top of Charlie, his cock brushing Charlie's as he lifted his head to look Charlie in the eye. Charlie was suddenly wide awake and paying attention. Don raked his teeth over his lower lip, riveting Charlie's attention on his mouth.
Don said in that same low voice, "I want to--Charlie, can I..."
The thrust of Don's hips, the way his thighs pressed Charlie's further apart, made actual verbs redundant. Charlie smiled, and pushed up to kiss Don one more time. "Fuck, I thought you would literally never ask."
"Didn't," Don muttered against his mouth.
"Did too," Charlie replied, automatically.
Don just shook his head, shoving his cock against Charlie's again, resting enough weight on Charlie to hold him still, as if he might possibly want to be anywhere else. Then Don moved, pushing up and away, over to the nightstand. Charlie turned his head to watch, but Don didn't need any direction, opening the correct drawer and pulling out lube and a condom like he knew where they were.
"Did you case my bedroom when you got here?"
"It's only casing if you're planning on stealing things," Don said, raising an eyebrow. "I think we've already established that you're all right with me using these?"
"Fine, fine. Recon," Charlie said, but he turned as he said it, rolling onto is stomach, spreading his legs and tilting his hips up.
"Speaking of," Don murmured, a second before his fingertips made contact with Charlie's shoulder, the still-sensitive (maybe always-sensitive, just because he knew it was different) skin above his right shoulder blade. "That's new."
Charlie twisted his head, trying to see, even though he couldn't, quite, and Don's fingers obscured what he could usually make out.
E=mc2
"Charlie," Don said, barely above a whisper. "c."
"It's behind me now," Charlie said. "But it's always there."
Don met his eyes, just for a second, and then leaned down and pressed a kiss between his fingertips, to the flash of red among the black. Charlie buried his face in the pillow, inhaled sweat and the smell of his own shampoo.
Don moved above and behind him, pressing kisses to the back of his neck, down his spine, and Charlie shivered a little, incongruous in the heat. Don didn't linger long--he wasn't rushing, just moving toward what they both wanted, and soon his finger was pressing slickly inside.
Charlie gasped at the sensation. It had been a long time, and though he'd clung to that memory it had gotten fuzzy with the passage of time, everything else that had passed since. The actual feeling, Don's finger actually sliding in, curling and stroking, was shocking and shockingly familiar, and Charlie couldn't help pushing back into it. Don pressed a kiss to his shoulder and just kept up the same steady motion, finger twisting inside him, until Charlie gasped, "Don, more, come on."
Don hummed low against his skin, but he pushed a second finger slowly inside, wet and easy, and that was better, sharp sparks of pleasure when Don crooked his fingers just right. He kept going on and on, and Charlie bit his lip against the urge to beg again. He could feel Don's breath against his neck and he wanted more, and he wanted Don to just do it, take what he wanted without being told. Charlie's dick was hard, almost painfully so, and the teasing touch just dragged on, until Charlie gave up and reached down, closing his own hand on his dick, one stroke, two...
Don chuckled against his shoulder. "Okay, Chuck."
Don's fingers slipped free, and Charlie couldn't help making a small noise in his throat--not a whine, not really. He pushed his face into the pillow and kept his hand still on his dick while Don moved behind him.
"Okay," Don repeated, a second before he touched Charlie again, pressing his leg forward, tilting his hips. Charlie held his breath even though it was exactly the wrong thing to do. Don breathed for both of them, shuddering out a long sigh as he pushed slowly inside. Charlie tightened his hand on his dick, the pleasure-pain building, the stretch and the weird-amazing sensation of being filled.
Don's hand closed over his on his dick, Don's weight settling over him, and then Don began to move. It was all a little bit slower than Charlie wanted, a little awkward, but Don pressed kisses--alternately soft and stinging--across his shoulders, always coming back to the tattoo. They were moving together, shaking Charlie's bed, dripping sweat. Charlie thought this is my life, grinning helplessly into the pillow as he came.
Don wasn't done yet, but he moved slower and gentler, his fingers still interlaced with Charlie's after Charlie tugged his hand away from his dick. Charlie had his eyes closed, sleepiness already washing over him with Don still fucking him, the feeling was so lazily good and might just go on forever and that was all right.
"Charlie," Don breathed, "Charlie, Charlie."
"Yeah," Charlie said softly, and reached back with his free hand, his fingers finding Don's hair--damp still, or again--and sliding down to the nape of his neck. The motion of Don's hips stuttered, and then his cock slammed in harder, making Charlie's breath hitch, making him think of later, more, again. But Don was still thinking of now. Charlie tightened his fingers and clenched tight on Don's cock.
Don's forehead pressed to the back of Charlie's neck, and Charlie loosened his grip, stroking Don's skin. Don jerked inside him, his breath stopping for a few long seconds. He kissed Charlie's neck as he finally let it out, a long ticklish sigh.
Charlie really was nearly asleep by the time he moved--the air was cool for a moment on Charlie's skin, and then Don was back, tipping Charlie onto his side and pulling him close.
"It's a nice house," Don murmured.
Charlie smiled with his eyes closed. "Yeah, I might get a lawnmower in the spring and everything."
Charlie's yard was a postage stamp dotted with enormous trees, but it might be fun anyway, he thought. Maybe just a weed-whacker. Everyone had always seemed to think he couldn't be trusted with one, but really, how much damage could he do?
"Mm," Don said, and then, nuzzling the skin just behind Charlie's ear, "You haven't been down to the basement, huh?"
Recon, Charlie thought, but even that didn't pierce the sleepy comfortable haze. There wasn't anything down there at all; it would have been obvious to Don even if he couldn't have guessed without setting foot in the place. "The inspector went. I looked in the windows from outside."
Don just nodded.
Charlie laughed a little, though he knew it wasn't funny exactly. He'd only just realized. "I just got asked today--I'm going to be working on a storm prediction project. Tornadoes, so we can improve the warning time."
"Hey, that's great," Don said, squeezing Charlie a little, sincere with his entire body. "That's really--"
Charlie shook his head. "No, it's--you know what you do with the warning time? You go down to your basement. You get away from the windows and you shut yourself in, and I don't know if I--"
Charlie laughed again, even though it still wasn't funny; he was just too tired to think about what it really was. Don's arms tightened around him with an entirely different meaning, now. "God, that would be a stupid way to die."
Don's fingertips dug into Charlie's skin a little, like the tornado was here now, trying to take Charlie away.
"Charlie, no. That's the one thing you know, you do what you have to. If the storm comes, you'll go down there, and when it's over you'll come right back up and get on with your work. You'd do it if you had to."
Charlie shook his head again--not denial, because he did know that, actually. He'd gone down those stairs at gunpoint, he'd do it at tornado-point if he had to. It was just...
"Fuck weather," Charlie muttered, sleepy and sweaty-warm and with Don pressed close and safe. It was sunny now, and tornadoes were still a math problem, and one he wasn't working on today.
"Sure," Don murmured, sounding amused, and Charlie was going to make a joke about Don fucking weather as soon as he figured out how it went. He fell asleep with it still on the tip of his tongue.
Charlie had categorically refused to set an alarm, but Don still found himself awake early, while the morning was cool, the humidity faintly clammy. He pulled on his jeans and slipped downstairs, starting a pot of coffee and staring out the window for a while at Charlie's yard.
There wasn't any particular reason to go down into Charlie's basement, except that it was there, behind a closed door, and Don maybe hadn't entirely left behind the urge to do stupid things. But Charlie was still asleep, and there was no harm in going down there either, nothing there to hurt anybody--except maybe ants, or a dripping leak somewhere, a crack in the wall or a creaky furnace. Nothing Charlie would have spotted from the windows. Don looked away from the sunlit window to the closed door and shook his head at his own hesitation.
Don pushed off from the counter, opened the door and left it all the way open behind him as he walked down, his bare feet silent on the bare wood steps. He felt blind after the bright morning he'd been looking out at, reminded himself he just had to let his eyes adjust. The floor was concrete, chilly underfoot. The back corner, by the plumbing connections, would probably be the best place to wait out a tornado, furthest from the windows, which were letting in plenty of morning light. Don made himself tour the rest of the basement's entirely unremarkable perimeter before he walked over to look at them.
They were new, and they were the kind that opened, without screens. Don reached up to touch the latch, and just then he heard a sound in the kitchen.
"Chuck?" Don walked to the foot of the stairs, just in time to see Charlie take the first step down.
"Hey," Charlie said, meeting Don's eyes, and then he looked down, watching his own feet as he took one slow step after another. Don stepped back, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for him. He couldn't pull Charlie through this.
Charlie hesitated a long time on the last wooden step, eyeing the concrete, and then hopped down with both feet, landing with a smack of skin. Don couldn't help smiling, and Charlie smiled unsteadily back.
Don kept his hands in his pockets, while Charlie made an immediate beeline for the windows. He tapped his fingers against the glass, took the latch on and off, and then just stood there, looking, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against his thigh. Charlie was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and as cool as it was in the basement, Don could see the first damp line forming down Charlie's spine.
"Try it."
Charlie looked back over his shoulder, startled, like he'd forgotten Don was there.
"Try it," Don repeated. "Climb out. See if you can."
Charlie nodded slowly, and then turned back, reaching up to unlatch the window and push it open. The sill of the window was eye-level on Charlie, and the concrete was rough. Charlie caught the track of the window, got one foot and then the other braced against the wall. Don wanted to step forward, catch him or give him a boost, but that was exactly what he couldn't do. Charlie lost his footing once, snarled an incoherent curse as his elbow smacked hard against the edge of the sill, and then he threw himself at the window, catching it in one scrambling lunge.
Don winced at the sound of him hitting his head against the glass, but it wasn't the truly scary melon-thump of concussion. Charlie didn't even seem to notice, squirming and thrashing and kicking as he hauled himself out. Don walked closer to the window as Charlie disappeared through it, until he was standing looking up at the soles of Charlie's feet, toes still braced against the window frame. He watched in silence for a few minutes, until Charlie's harsh breathing quieted, his feet flexing idly against the window frame.
"Charlie?"
"Yeah," Charlie said, sounding breathless and faraway. "It's, uh. It's kind of cold out here."
Charlie moved as he said it, pushing up to his hands and knees and turning around to crouch in the dirt, looking down at Don through the window.
Don smiled. "Well, come back in, then."
Charlie eyed the window, and then shrugged and sat down, scooting forward to slide his feet through. Don caught him just above the knees, easing him down as he lowered himself back into the basement, scuffed and grimy. He had red grazes on his palms and a bleeding scrape on his elbow, and he was smiling brightly in the morning sun, his cheeks pink. He hardly seemed to notice the chilly breeze still pouring through the window.
"You okay, buddy?"
Charlie laughed a little. "I'm--Don, I love you. And don't argue this time, I mean it."
Don grinned and raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, okay. No argument."
"I mean it," Charlie repeated, leaning back against the wall, rubbing idly at his stomach--another scrape, probably. He was still smiling, still a little far away.
"I know," Don said patiently. "But you didn't answer my question. You okay?"
"Yeah," Charlie said, reaching out to hook two fingers into Don's jeans, pulling him close enough for a kiss. "Yeah. We're okay."
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