Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/827779.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Numb3rs
  Relationship:
      Charlie_Eppes/Don_Eppes
  Additional Tags:
      Sibling_Incest
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-06-02 Words: 8297
****** Remaining Close: Slightly Disturbed ******
by ifthatisyourrealname
Summary
     After a close call with a sniper, Don has a late night visit from
     Charlie, who brings memories with him that Don would rather forget.
     Set somewhere around S1/S2.
Notes
     Part of this fic contains a consensual sexual situation where Charlie
     is underage. It isn't a repeated occurrence. If you think it might be
     a concern for you, please ask a friend to check it out first.
Truth be told, when the door to his apartment crashed open Don was more than
half way to sleep, beer bottle tilting at a dangerous angle. He was on his feet
in a split second, reflexes working overtime, reaching for the gun he'd long
since stashed in the lockbox and succeeding only in tipping a slug of beer over
his pants. Nice.
"Charlie, what the hell?" he asked as his brother closed on him, reaching out
and pressing his palm flat against Don's chest.
"Shh, shh, shh," replied Charlie, holding up a finger and resolutely not
meeting Don's eyes. "I just need to…after today, after what happened. I just
need to know it's still beating, okay?"
"Sure it's beating, buddy," said Don, feeling the familiar mild exasperation of
years bubbling up through layers of exhaustion and, okay, sure, brief mortal
terror. "It's beating a goddamn mile a minute thanks to your little home
invasion here."
He put his hand over Charlie's, whose fingers spasmed slightly at the touch.
"Come on," he said. "It's two a.m. You saw me get up off the ground. No muss,
no fuss. What's this all about?"
Charlie looked up at him then, eyes glittering in the lamp light, and Don could
read the terror there, understood without asking that Charlie's heart would be
pounding out a rhythm to match his own.
"I had a dream. Everything…it followed the pattern, Don. To the horrible,
inevitable concl- To that. Because it should have. Given the weather conditions
and the optimal positioning of the…of the…"
"Sniper," Don filled in and then immediately wished he hadn't when he saw the
wince pass across Charlie's face.
"Yes. Him. Everything was right and the fact that he went for center mass was a
statistical anomaly and I don't understand why he didn't…It should've been a
headshot, Don. It should have been a shot right here." And Charlie pressed his
index finger to the middle of Don's forehead.
Don resisted the urge to swipe his brother's hands away. Instead he took
Charlie's wrist gently and pulled it down to his side. "You know, generally
speaking, the one who nearly died is the one who gets to freak out."
Charlie couldn't help but smile a little at that and it lifted something that
had been sitting heavy in Don's chest since he'd been cleared by the EMT and
sent home.
"So why aren't you?" Charlie asked. "Or are FBI agents only allowed a five
minute freaking out window and I missed it?"
"Ten, actually," Don said, waiting for the irritated frown and grinning when he
got it. "Seriously, buddy, I'm okay. I took a shower and a new bruise
inventory, drank some beer, lost about half an hour there to trying to work out
what the hell you were gonna tell Dad if it had gone the other way. The usual."
"New bruise," said Charlie, and the flutter of his fingers under Don's made Don
acutely aware that Charlie's hand remained pressed to Don's heart, the bony
base of his thumb stimulating a quiet, throbbing pain response like a faded
echo of his heartbeat.
Charlie's hand shifted, restless, and Don let it go, briefly wondering how it
was the pain got worse once the pressure was gone. Taking a step back, Charlie
tilted his head and gave Don a considered look.
"I'm beat. You beat?"
"What do you think, genius?"
"I think we should sleep. Come on." And Charlie was heading into the bedroom
before Don had even time to blink.
"You know your bed's in another house, right?" he asked, trailing his brother
into the room.
Charlie was already sitting on the bed and toeing off his laced sneakers in
exactly the way their mom had always begged him not to. He'd always done things
his own way. He shrugged. "See, the thing is that I'm not leaving. I tried the
part where I slept in my bed and it got me here in the middle of the night
trying not to have a panic attack in the cab. Imagine the possibilities if I'd
tried to drive myself."
He shuddered, balled up his socks and shoved them into one of the sneakers,
dropping it onto the floor. "It makes more sense economically at least and, um,
emotionally at best if I stay here. If I have another nightmare, all I have to
do to discount the bad data is reach over." He looked up at Don and grinned.
"It'll save on cab fare. Also, your door gets to stay on its hinges, which is
something both you and it would like, I'm assuming."
Don shrugged. "Can't argue with that," he said. Oh, he so could argue with
that, but fear was still edging Charlie's face and, if Don allowed himself to
be honest, the idea of being not alone was appealing. Even if the not alone
included the sprawling mass that was Charlie asleep.
He began to shuck off his sweatpants, grimacing at the damp patch of skin just
below his hip. It took him a second to remember where that came from—the
beer—yet another thing to swell the banks of mild exasperation. Charlie: the
gift that kept on giving. Don kept his eye roll to himself.
"Rule one," he said, sliding in next to Charlie, already settled against the
pillows with his hands behind his head. "No cover stealing." He shoved his
brother in the side, going easy on him this time, his skin warm and pliable
under Don's fingers.
"I do not!" Charlie dropped his arms and aimed a shoulder barge at Don that
might have worked at shifting Larry from his equilibrium but that Don was more
than a match for. Rock solid.
"Do, too. And rule two, no smothering me with pillows."
"That was one time," Charlie complained. "And it was an accident. And I was
eight."
"Still a rule," said Don, leaning over to switch off the light. He could hear
Charlie muttering about stupid rules and he smiled into the dark, turning on to
his side and immediately entering a short-lived game of comforter-tug. He won
with ease and tucked a corner under his shoulder; no giving an inch when
Charlie could spin that into an equation that resulted in him somehow taking
the whole goddamn thing.
"'night, Charlie," he said.
"'night," said Charlie, and then in a soft voice, "I'm glad you're still
alive."
Don eased the comforter out a little. Too tight. "Me, too, buddy. Me, too."
After that, all Don could hear was the quiet shift of Charlie's regular
breathing. Don listened, slotting his own breaths in between Charlie's. What
had Charlie said all those times about waveforms? One breathing in, one out,
the rises and falls cancelling each other out. If he concentrated on keeping
the pattern he didn't have to think about the dull ache in his chest where the
bullet hit, or the absence of ache in his skull where it didn't.
He was finally drifting toward sleep (one in, one out, one out, one in) when
Charlie said, "The last time we did this was right before I went to Princeton,
remember?"
Don stopped breathing. This was Charlie playing a whole new form of comforter-
tug. Switching up the rules to make himself an easy winner, and leaving Don
cold and frozen; his cotton-soft and woolen-scratched memories so cautiously
and carefully layered over years jerked violently away.
Of course he remembered. He'd never tried so hard to forget anything, but his
body always betrayed him, serving up the memories with hot-faced shame, making
him relive every moment even as he tried to scrub them out. Like trying to
erase pencil with magic marker. Don fought to breathe (one in, one in, one in).
Control the environment, that's what he was taught. Don't give room to
maneuver.
"I never kept tabs," he said, forcing himself to sound gruff and bored at the
same time. "You were a pain in the ass back then. Still are. Now go to sleep."
Charlie didn't make a sound, didn't move an inch, but Don knew without looking
that his eyes were wide open and his brain was working a mile a minute, sorting
through the probabilities that Don was telling the truth, what the potential
outcomes of any next move could be. Don forced himself to keep breathing slow
and steady (one in, one out), feeling like a heel but determined to keep his
course.
After a silence that dragged on Don's nerves and made him ache for a chalkboard
to scrape his nails down to shatter the tension, Charlie said in a quiet,
defeated tone, "Still glad you're alive," and Don upgraded himself from heel to
worst human being in existence.
He pressed his fingertips hard into the center of his newest bruise and refused
to curl around the pain that blossomed across his chest. Don had thought that
it would be his close encounter with the wrong end of a sniper's rifle that
kept him awake tonight. He'd thought wrong. He closed his eyes, pressed harder,
and waited for morning.
                                      ***
The almost imperceptible click of a twisting doorknob made Don shift his head
on the pillow, squinting at the door through bleary eyes. He watched as the
knob turned back the other way and then, after a few seconds reversed again. He
snorted softly and let it run through the whole cycle three more times before
raising his voice in a loud whisper. "Quit fooling around and come in already."
The knob stilled mid-turn and then twisted all the way in a rush, the door
swinging open. Charlie set one foot over the threshold and then hovered, half
obscured by the door. "I didn't mean to wake you," he said.
Don rolled his eyes and lifted the covers. "Get in, I'm not having this
conversation with the door."
Charlie shut the door with excruciating care, the latch settling into place
with barely a sound, and then scurried across the room, landing in the bed with
enough bounce to earn him another eye roll.
"Any time you like," said Don to Charlie's fidgeting body. Charlie stopped
wriggling and lay straight as a knife, clutching tight to the sheet that
covered them. It was a hot night and there wasn't much room in the bed. Don was
already starting to sweat from the extra heat coming off his brother. It was
going to be hard to sleep; this had better be good.
"I'm scared," said Charlie, and, okay, maybe that was worth being woken up for.
Don turned on his side and raised himself up on an elbow. He looked down at
Charlie, reading fear in his wide eyes and tightened lips. It was an expression
he'd gotten to know well these past years with the amount of bullying Charlie'd
had to take—too little, too smart, too everything. God, he'd even put it there
himself enough times. He reached out and patted Charlie's chest.
"Of course you are, buddy," he said. "It's a big step, Princeton. College kid
mind in a grade school body."
"Hey!" protested Charlie, swatting at Don's hand. "I'm a man now, same as you.
I have chest hairs and a certificate!"
Don nodded, serious-faced. "Well, if there's a certificate…" There was no way
he could keep that up, though, and he grinned. "Chest hairs and the voice to go
with."
Charlie threw a soft punch at Don's forearm. "How long is this going to be
funny to you?"
"Oh, I think forever." Don patted Charlie's chest again. "You go from squeaking
like a girl to talking like a trucker overnight and you didn't even notice for
two weeks. Every time you open your mouth we're listening all slack-jawed and
you had no clue. It was awesome."
Don didn't even try to stop the laughter that was swelling up inside of him. He
laughed and laughed, remembering how Charlie had been in the middle of a long
explanation of something to do with binomial distribution to measure success
rates of Mom's gardening experiments when he'd stopped, put a hand to his
throat, eyes practically popping out of his head, and fled upstairs. They'd
found him in his bedroom, speaking into his tape recorder and playing it back,
the horrified expression slowly turning into a smile almost as bright as the
day outside.
"You're still not asking Val to prom," Don had said. "Don't even try."
Now, Don found himself under ambush as Charlie twisted and launched himself at
Don, grabbing one wrist and pushing at the other shoulder. He might be the
smaller of the two, but he was compact and the attack took Don by surprise. He
landed on his back with a heavy thud, Charlie scrambling on top of him,
laughing as he tried to pin Don's arms and legs with his own. Don went limp,
letting him think he had it for a second, and then scissored his legs and
yanked his arms up, sending Charlie sprawling against his chest. He flipped
them and bounced up against the springy resistance of the mattress, using his
weight to hold Charlie down, attempting his best mass cheering sound effect
through cupped hands.
"And the crowd goes wild!" He tweaked Charlie's nose and threw himself off and
back down by Charlie's side, watching Charlie's chest rise and fall with
heaving breaths, lopsided smile on his face. The fear was gone, if only
temporarily, and Don had done that, too. Hey, so maybe he wasn't always a
shitty big brother.
"If it helps at all," Don said. "When my voice broke, Mom had no clue what was
happening. She thought I was getting sick. Kept me off school for two days and
fed me lozenges."
Charlie twisted his head sharply, looking up at Don through narrowed eyes.
"You're kidding?"
"Nope."
"That's…that's amazing."
"I know, right?"
"Wow." Charlie shook his head. "I thought Mom knew everything. About us,
anyway."
"And she's taking you to Princeton," said Don agreeably. "Good luck with that."
"Don," Charlie whined, and his hand pressed against Don's ribs. "Don't."
Don grabbed Charlie's wrist and used it to pull Charlie up close, sliding an
arm around his neck. "Hey, little brother, don't worry." He let go of the wrist
and squeezed. Hugs were always easiest in the dark. "It's gonna be great. Trust
me. Think about the computer labs. And all that math. So much math, Charlie.
Plus, you know, actual seasons. You'll get snow. Gotta say, I'm more jealous
about the snow than the math."
"Mmm, snow," said Charlie in a voice shot through with sleepiness. "'s gonna be
great. Trust you."
Under Charlie's weight Don's skin prickled with sticky, uncomfortable heat, but
he tightened his arms and held on.
When they woke, Charlie was still mashed against his side, head curled almost
into Don's armpit and one leg flung across Don's hips. For a second, Don
wondered if it was going to sting when Charlie peeled himself off and then he
realized he had more pressing concerns. Literally.
"Hey, buddy." Don prodded the fleshy triangle between Charlie's shoulder and
collarbone. "Wake up. You got business to attend to."
"Not time to go yet," mumbled Charlie into Don's ribs. "Can't even hear Mom and
Dad. Sleep more."
Well, that wasn't happening. "Nu-uh. C'mon, Charlie, parts of you are already
up and at 'em. Let's get with the program, huh?"
Charlie lifted his head and stared at Don, eyes red-rimmed and barely open. Don
allowed a moment's guilt for bringing Charlie right back to reality and then
pointed down his body. Charlie followed the line of motion, freezing as he saw
what Don was pointing at—his hard dick, escaped from the slit in the front of
his shorts and pressed tight to Don's hipbone.
Don was right. It did sting. He was pretty sure Charlie'd taken at least six
layers of Don's skin with him with the speed he'd pulled back.
"Ow," he said, looking down at his abdomen where a red stripe left Charlie's
mark, even if he was already halfway across the room, cheeks flushed, fixing
his dignity if he'd ever had any dignity to fix. And then, "You should probably
go take care of that. Who knows next time you get to be alone, you and Mom all
cramped up in a little apartment?"
Charlie ducked his head, face twisted into a grimace that was definitely more
than embarrassed now. Don could only parse it as pain, but surely that couldn't
be?
"I…can't." Charlie said with a worrying air of finality.
Don frowned, sitting up. "Can't?" His eyes widened as a horrifying thought
occurred to him. "Charlie, you do know what to do, right?"
Charlie looked back up and the scornful expression was so familiar it made Don
want to laugh. "Of course I know what to do. I went to high school, Don. You
were there."
"So what, then?"
Charlie shook his head.
Don shook his own. This was ridiculous. Charlie was ridiculous. The whole thing
was ridiculous and he couldn't believe he was going to have this conversation
with his kid brother, but he couldn't just let him go off to college all wet
behind the ears and unable to use the piece of equipment with the greatest
potential that he owned outside of his brain. That was not playing fair. He
patted the mattress.
"Get back here and tell me what's going on or I'll tell Mom it was you who
broke Aunt Irene's crystal vase."
"You wouldn't," Charlie pointed out. "You promised and you always keep your
promises." But he was already moving towards the bed.
"I do, huh?"
"I keep charts."
"Of course you do."
The mattress sagged as Charlie sat down, keeping his back turned away from Don.
Don tapped him lightly on the spine. "Spill."
Charlie's shoulders lifted as he snorted. "That's just the point," he said. "I
can't." His shoulders drooped again. "I know what to do. It's straightforward
mechanics and I can do it, but I can't…When I get close it feels…I think I'm
going to die, Don. When I try to jerk off it feels like I'm gonna die."
Don was torn between laughing himself into an aneurysm and hugging Charlie so
hard his ribs popped. Either way sounded pretty bad so he did neither, instead
taking Charlie's arm and tugging him around so he could see his face.
"You won't die, buddy. I promise I know exactly how that feels and all it means
is that you're at that magic moment that's gonna make everything fall away.
It's intense, but it's awesome and, Charlie, if anyone in the world needs a
moment here or there where nothing else matters, it's you."
Charlie shook his head. "Too scared."
Don took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Far as he could see there was only
one way around this. This was no weirder than cleaning up his brother's poop
when he was a baby, right? Big brother responsibilities. He opened his eyes and
pushed at Charlie's shoulder.
"Lie down," he said. "I'm gonna show you how this thing works and then you'll
see I'm right and you're wrong and we'll have to mark this day because pretty
sure that'll be the first time you've ever admitted that."
He didn't know how he'd expected Charlie to react—horrified, enthusiastic,
disgusted—but if he'd had to pick a word puzzled would not have been on the
list. Still, Charlie lay down and waited.
Don rolled his eyes. "Take your shorts off, dummy."
Charlie wriggled his shorts down over his hips, bunching them across his
thighs. His dick was thick and almost ramrod straight, standing up at an angle
and twitching like it was demonstrating all the nervousness Charlie's face
wasn't. Puberty had come fast for Charlie and it was still strange for Don to
see hairs curling in places other than on Charlie's head. He had years to grow
and change yet, though. This, Don knew from personal experience, was only the
beginning. If he were totally honest, Don really hoped Charlie's dick didn't
get much bigger. There were some humiliations an older brother was not prepared
to take.
"So," he said, trying to keep his eyes on Charlie's face. "You always need some
kind of lube, yeah? Doesn't have to be anything fancy. People got by long
enough with spit and it'll do just fine. 's fun playing around with other
stuff, though. Try that sometime."
Charlie nodded, dark eyes solemn. "I licked my hand."
"Okay, good. So we'll stick with what you know." Don lifted his hand to his
mouth and then stopped as a wave of heat spread through his body. He shook it
off (stupid California weather) and licked his palm. "Ready?"
"Ready," agreed Charlie, and licked his lips.
Don closed his hand around Charlie's dick and Charlie whimpered. Don's heart
thumped a painful beat. "You sure you're okay?" he asked.
Charlie's response was to push into Don's hand, the heat pouring from his dick
far hotter than Charlie's leg against his body had been earlier. At least this
time it wouldn't sting when they pulled apart.
"Then you gotta keep quiet, okay?"
Charlie blinked and pressed his lips tight together.
"Okay," said Don, and started to stroke.
If he'd been doing himself he'd've played some tricks, edged himself off until
he was ready to take the fall, enjoying the whole journey, not just the
destination, but Charlie needed to be pushed off a cliff and he needed to be
pushed fast. The first few strokes Don kept the pressure light and steady,
reading Charlie's body as he bucked his hips off the bed and flung an arm out,
hitting a pillow with a dull whump. Don tightened his grip and picked up the
tempo and now Charlie gripped the pillow white-knuckled and his thighs tensed
and trembled.
So far, so good, but then Don let his thumb flick over the head of Charlie's
dick, circling the sticky threads of Charlie's arousal around his hole and
Charlie went wild, feet scrabbling for purchase and hands gripping Don's wrist,
trying to pull him away.
Don stilled, suddenly very aware that his breathing was almost as harsh as
Charlie's. "Do you-" It came out cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Do you
want me to stop?"
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Yes. No." He opened his
eyes wide and something in his face felt like a gut punch. "Don't let me die,
Don?"
It was Don's turn for the headshake. "Never gonna happen, buddy," he said. He
laced his fingers between Charlie's, dragging the hand off his wrist and
putting it over Charlie's heart. "Feel that?" he said.
"Yes."
"Then let's do this thing."
Charlie's smile may have been less than full power, but it was heartfelt and
Don knew it. He took his hand off Charlie's dick, grinning at Charlie's
attempts to follow with his hips, licked his hand and put it back again.
Seconds away, round two.
It took next to nothing to turn Charlie back into a quivering mess. Don wasn't
surprised—he must have been ready for this for months. "It's okay," he said,
looking into Charlie's eyes and pressing down on his hand, the rapid heartbeat
so fierce it vibrated through his arm. "Let go, Charlie. Just let it all go."
He sped up his stroke, adding a little twist and thumb circle to the end and he
could see as it hit, Charlie's eyes rounder than they'd ever been, shoving his
arm in his mouth and biting down to stop himself shouting out. Felt it in
fierce pulses along Charlie's dick, so much pressure finally finding a release,
striping Charlie's chest and belly, Don's hand, too.
Don gentled Charlie through the aftershocks that shuddered across his body and
then let go, pressing down on Charlie's hand over his heart.
"Feel that?" he asked again.
Charlie nodded, arm still shoved in his mouth.
"Proof of life," said Don. "Told you." He lifted his hand from Charlie's and
waved it in front of Charlie's face. "Also? Gross. What are you? An elephant?
We got a whole lake going on here."
Charlie took his arm out of his mouth and smiled. "Sorry."
"You are so not. I know the fake apology smile when I see it."
The grin was swift and real and, for an instant, Don felt light-headed.
"I am so not sorry. That was…that was…"
"Pretty cool?"
"No."
"Amazing?"
"No."
"Awesome?"
"No."
"Then what, Charlie?"
Charlie struggled to his elbows, looking down at the mess Don had made of his
body. He looked back at Don, eyes shining with the fervor of the newly
converted. "That was better than math!"
Don lay down and laughed until he nearly cried. "Well, fuck, Charlie," he said,
when he finally had his breath back. "Don't go telling Mom and Dad or they'll
kill me for breaking their genius kid."
It wasn't until Don was washing up the few plates from a dinner set for two
instead of four that he realized what he'd said. Very, very carefully he put
down the dish he was cleaning, ran upstairs and very, very quietly threw up
every last ounce of the lasagna his Mom had left as a parting gift "for two of
her special boys".
The next day he went out and bought a lock for his bedroom door, not allowing
himself to think about whether he'd fitted it to keep Charlie out or to keep
himself in.
                                      ***
When Don woke to the haze of early morning sunlight bleeding through the
blinds, the first thing he registered was surprise that he'd slept at all. The
second was the inevitable horror of finding himself in almost the exact same
situation he had spent way too much of the night resolutely not thinking about.
Charlie was taller now, so his head was tucked under Don's chin, and the curls
of his longer hair tickled Don's neck, but there was his leg, thrown across
Don's belly and…yep…there was the dick pressed up hard along his hipbone.
"Godammit, Charlie," Don growled and tried to shove his brother off without
letting his hand go anywhere near the loaded weapon.
But Charlie was ready for him, lifting his head and pushing back on Don's ribs,
careful to avoid the bruising, thrusting a little into the groove of Don's hip.
This was no accident. Don could take him easy, but he was tired and there was a
headache stretching into life behind one eye and he couldn't risk hurting
Charlie, not even a little.
"Get off," he said instead, trying for a reasonable tone but hitting it maybe
half an octave too high.
Charlie laughed. "I guess you need that FBI-mandated ten minute freak out
window, huh?" he said.
Something hot and heavy coiled inside Don making it hard for him to breathe.
"The FBI would mandate this a fucking felony, Charlie. This is not a joke."
The smile fell off Charlie's face. "It's a state issue, actually," he said.
"The FBI are too busy dealing with terrorism and serial killers to spare much
concern about whether or not I want to swap body fluids with my brother."
Don clenched his fists. If he counted to ten he could stop himself breaking
Charlie's nose. Odds on. At seven, he unclenched his fists and pressed his
fingertips into the mattress hard enough to feel the slow but sure speeding of
tiny pulses. Still alive.
"Charlie, please," he managed to get out between gritted teeth.
"Please what, Don? Please help me out here? Please take care of this hard on I
got from proximity to the one person I'm not supposed to want? Do you even know
how hard you've gotten? Have you even noticed? Because I have."
Don hadn't, but he wasn't surprised. He hadn't trusted his body in a long time,
and the dreams drifting back to him had been full on surround sound and
Technicolor. He could even smell the faint tang of sex in the air, taste it in
the back of his throat and had to stop himself from checking if he'd completely
regressed to his teenage years and started the day with a damp patch. That
would only have been another nail in the coffin.
"Please leave me alone," he said, and saw the sharp-bladed edge of desperation
hit home.
Charlie pulled back, sitting up—and, oh, that was a sweet relief in itself—but
he didn't leave. Don could see the calculations flit across his face, could see
the exact moment he chose a fresh direction as Charlie's unhappy expression
slid seamlessly into a different configuration, eyes narrowing and jaw
tightening until Don was seeing a whole new brother, predatory and calculating.
"Give me a reason why not," he said, reaching out and pressing Don's nipple
with a thumb. Don went to grab at his wrist and Charlie leaned back, palms
raised, the slightest smile edging his lips, though not the kind that warmed
anyone's heart. Not even Don's. "And I'm discounting state law and the idea
that you don't want to. It's a statistical certainty that neither of us wants
to go to prison and-" Charlie raised his eyebrows, directing his gaze at Don's
dick then back to his face, "-you clearly want to, so. Reason."
Don shook his head and sat up, as much to get Charlie's dick out of his eye
line than anything else. He looked into the distance and began to count off on
his fingers. "Let's see, shall we? One. Brothers. So, creepy, bad and wrong.
Two. I broke you, Charlie. I did this to you. You were a kid and I thought I
was helping, but I wasn't and now you're…you're this." This guy who thinks
fucking his brother is all in a day's work, he didn't say. "Three. I broke me,
too. I haven't…There hasn't been a single night we've spent under the same roof
since then that I didn't keep a locked door between us if I could. You said it
yourself; I'm not supposed to want you. Isn't that enough?"
"Don, no." Charlie wrapped his hand around Don's outstretched fingers, curling
them back in and holding on. "Look at me. Look at me."
Don obeyed orders (be a good soldier, son) and, where he'd expected to see pain
or anger saw only concern and warmth—acceptance. There was another name for it,
but Don wasn't ready to shape the word. Not yet.
"You didn't break me," Charlie said, with a tight nod and eyebrows raised as
high as they would go, as if Don wouldn't believe this any other way. "I mean,
I thought about it—like, a lot—because you blew my mind that day. Princeton
opened up all these intellectual avenues for me, you know? But what you did?
That was peace, man. That was enlightenment. That was a place to go when it was
all too much. I got through that first semester on Fruit Loops and Kleenex. I
think Mom thought I was allergic to New Jersey air or something." His brief
smile was a flash of brilliance in the half-light.
Don frowned, shaking his head. "You'd've figured it out on your own, Charlie. I
had no right. You were thirteen. I was supposed to be responsible for you. That
was my job, first and last, and I screwed it up." His insides churned now. This
would teach him to go to bed with his brother on exactly no dinner and three
and a half beers. This would teach him where willful blindness got him. He
swallowed hard. This was not happening again, not on his watch.
Charlie sighed, letting go of Don's hand. "I have a pretty good memory, you
know, and I seem to recall you checking in on me. I'd call that responsible,
wouldn't you?"
"Charlie, c'mon. You were a kid."
"And how do you determine that?" Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, by
Jewish law I was bar Mitzvah, a man, responsible for my own moral decisions.
I'd hit puberty running, been through high school even. I blew straight through
age-appropriate before I could even say my 'r's properly. You know what, Don?
You can fall back on arbitrary statutes if you like, but you know as well as I
do that if we're looking at logical reasoning as a means to consent then…then
at least half the population shouldn't be allowed to fuck until they're in
their mid-twenties at least, if ever, and I should've have been screwing since
I was, oh, maybe seven. Eight, tops."
Don couldn't help but snort a laugh at that, swallowing it down as quickly as
it came. Too late for Charlie not to notice, though, and his smile was sudden
and grateful. Charlie's fingers grazed Don's elbow and the rush of gooseflesh
across Don's body was exhilarating, the confusing, unexpectedly thrilling
combination of licking a nine volt battery and taking a cold shower at the same
time.
Charlie turned his head a little, looking over Don's shoulder, eyes going dark
and unfocused. "I guess I'm sorry, Don."
"You're kidding me, right?" Don choked back another laugh, tasting it bitter on
his tongue. "What have you got to apologize for?"
Charlie's gazed flickered across Don's face, pupils still wide, and Don felt
transparent and fragile as glass. "I'm sorry you carried it this way all this
time. If I'd known, I would have…" Charlie trailed off.
"Done what?" Don rubbed his eyes with finger and thumb, more tired than the
post-adrenaline crash could account for. "Used your words? Used math?"
"There are very few things that can't be explained with mathema-" Charlie
caught himself, closing his mouth around the 't'. He blinked once, eyes coming
back into sharp focus, and frowned. "Fugitive recovery," he said, accusation in
his tone. "Who exactly was running?"
Don dropped his chin, raising it again with a sigh. "It's easier to catch a
fugitive when you're one yourself."
"You left me on purpose," Charlie said, like he was pulling new data out of the
air, synthesizing it with what he already knew. "Fugitive recovery, the
Academy, Albuquerque. All that time you kept away you thought you were keeping
me safe from you."
Don hadn't thought about it that way, not since he'd had to move home and be
exactly where he hadn't wanted to be. It had been easy to be angry with
Charlie, then, the way he hid from their mother even as she slipped away. Easy
to blame that and not think about the fact that Charlie might have been hiding
from Don as well. But Charlie wasn't letting it lie, staring at him with hot,
angry eyes, and it roared inside his head, the years of guilt, of the times
he'd dreamed of his hand on his brother's dick, sometimes frozen at thirteen,
other times older—the last time he'd seen his brother, the last photograph from
home. There was no oxygen in the air, none at all, and Don stuck his head
between his knees, gasping for breath.
"Hey," said Charlie, hand patting Don's back with a hesitant rhythm. "Hey, hey,
come on. It's all okay. The only one here demonizing you is you."
Don kept right on breathing and Charlie's hand switched to circles. Don
couldn't help but rock into them, finding a strange steadiness in the motion.
Charlie said, "Look, maybe the past is predicting the future. That what
happened happened is why what's happening now is happening-"
"Say happen one more time, Charlie, I swear," Don interrupted, lifting his head
and pretending he wasn't being careful not to shuck Charlie's hand.
"I know," said Charlie. "But, Don, listen. What if I hadn't come into your room
that night? What if I hadn't confessed my…ah…my inadequate data? Would this
still be happening now? Sorry." He patted Don between the shoulder blades and
then resumed his circling. "Occurring now? You never would have locked yourself
away from me, right? Never stayed away from home so long. We can't extrapolate
backwards from here and pinpoint a different starting point because there are
too many variables."
He was on a roll now, free hand describing patterns in the air, face alive with
the light of his passion, and the memories of all the times Charlie had
persuaded him with math were crashing about his head. Charlie always sold him.
Always.
"We can generate infinite behaviors from the deterministic set, finite though
it is. We can do that and we can call it free will, a predictable
unpredictability, if you like, but you can't say we wouldn't have wound up
exactly here just because you'd prefer not to have. We're here; this is who we
are. Wouldn't it be easier to stop fighting and accept that?"
Well, duh, Charles, Don wanted to say. But he wasn't done fighting, not yet.
Brothers didn't- They shouldn't- Just because Charlie seemed to have reached
the conclusion that consent trumped genetics didn't mean he had to follow suit.
He had to keep playing the cards.
"How are you so okay with this?" Don asked, peering sideways up at Charlie.
Charlie let out a disbelieving laugh, eyes going soft and round. "Okay?" he
said, voice rising. "Okay?"
Don tensed, ready for the onslaught, but instead Charlie took his hand from
Don's back and tracked the circumference of Don's encounter with the sniper
with such a delicate touch that Don could barely feel it, though it was enough
to set a tremor in his thighs.
"When you went down," Charlie said in a light conversational tone, addressing
Don's left ear as far as he could tell, "It was like I'd been shot, too. Right
here." He splayed his other hand across his chest. "If it hadn't been for David
grabbing me, I'd've been on the floor, just the same as you. I was dead until
you were alive. Don't you get it? There is no me without you, Don. It doesn't
work. That was when I realized that whatever this is, the thing that we've been
circling around, it's a strange attractor and we can't escape it, it's not
mathematically possible."
Don tightened his eyebrows as the gut punch of Charlie's simple confession was
overlaid by the more familiar buzz of confusion. He clutched at it like a
lifebelt even though he knew he was already drowned. "A what?"
"A strange attractor." Charlie's fingers flickered and moved away from Don's
chest. He rubbed finger and thumb together in the air. "I'd write you the
equations, but no chalkboard."
"101 me, then."
"Okay, so, you and I, we're variables, right? And we split into paths that are
determined by our choices, where we work, where we live, so on and so forth.
More variables."
"With you so far."
"Good. So consider this thing we have…had…will have. Let's call it set A. If we
plot our variables—us, our choices—into a dynamic system, let's call that life,
no matter how far we circle out, we will always circle back in towards set A.
It's chaotic, because I'm not picking dinner next month based on what I ate
today, but given enough time it's inevitable. Predictable unpredictability
again, see?"
"Not really."
Charlie drew his eyebrows down, thinking, and Don wondered exactly how old
Charlie had been when he first got the lines between his brows when he sunk
deep in thought and where Don would have been that he had missed it.
"Ah!" said Charlie, steepling his hands and bouncing his fingertips off each
other. "Imagine, if you will, infinity. The sign, not the unknowable vastness
of the universe because we're good, but we're not that good."
"Got it."
"Now imagine someone made you draw over that with different colored crayons,
hundred of times. You'd have a double looping system with a thick center that
has to be crossed every time. Consider us the loops, the variables. The center,
that's the set A I was talking about. And the interesting thing about strange
attractors—one of the many interesting things—is that points that get close
enough to the attractor stay close, even-" Charlie paused and grinned. "Even if
they are slightly disturbed."
Later, Don could pinpoint that as the moment that he gave in to the inevitable
predictable unpredictability of Charlie. Now, he threw himself back against the
mattress and put a hand over his eyes. Slightly didn't even begin to cover it.
"Ha ha, very funny."
"It's true. The disturbed part. The rest of it might be simplified, but I've
thought about it…a lot, actually…and it's the only thing that makes sense. I
can't circle away from this, Don, and neither can you."
Don raised his hand, shading his eyes, and tried to hear what Charlie was
telling him over the noise of nonononononono, reverberating so loud that Don
could have sworn his skull was hollow on the inside. Brainlessness would at
least excuse what he did next.
He looked up at Charlie, saw the tense lines in the set of his shoulders, the
minute vibrations of his curls, the way his fingertip moved restlessly against
one thigh—writing equations, Don was sure, Charlie's way of calming himself
since he was a little kid. Saw his face, the lines back between his brows,
mouth pinched with worry but eyes reading something different. Something
better. That word Don was still afraid to name, maybe. He saw all that and
said, "You should probably kiss me then, Professor Eppes."
"Really?" Charlie looked so much like the kid he'd seen on countless birthday
mornings that Don almost changed his mind.
Almost.
"Really." He grasped Charlie's arm, but didn't need to tug—Charlie was falling
all on his own.
Charlie propped himself up on an elbow, face hovering over Don's, so close that
Don couldn't focus, couldn't see anything beyond the dark smudges of Charlie's
eyes and the paler smear of his mouth. Don closed his eyes and waited. And
waited. He opened them again and found Charlie hadn't moved an inch.
"Charlie, c'mon." Don't make me beg. "Would you just do it, already?"
Charlie's fingers crept up Don's chest, sliding around his neck, thumb
caressing his jawline. Don found himself leaning into the gentle warmth as
Charlie said, "I was trying to figure out how I could…but it's not…" His hand
slid further up the back of Don's head, knuckling into his hair. "I guess what
I need is experiential data. Go backwards."
And before Don could retort that forward motion was required first, Charlie
came down to meet him and their lips touched and the hot fire that rushed
through Don's body and jolted his back upwards in a tight arc felt a little
something like shame but a whole lot more like desire.
Charlie kissed like he lectured, expansive yet considered, and, as he pushed
harder, pressed deeper into Don's mouth, Don saw the infinity loop drawing
itself in sweeps of red behind tight-closed eyelids. Strange attractor. Strange
but inevitable, just like Charlie said, because the twisted loop flapped its
butterfly wings and blew the last remnants of Don's resistance away.
He dragged his hand through Charlie's hair, using it to tug him over, unable to
suppress a groan as Charlie's body slid on top of his. Don sucked Charlie's
lower lip into his mouth, wrapping him up in a tight hug as if he could somehow
fuse the two of them together in this center that they couldn't escape. The
bruise on his chest ached with the pressure of it, the pain in direct
opposition to the electric jolt of pleasure that shot through him as Charlie's
hard dick nudged against his. He couldn't have one without the other if Charlie
was going to stay where he was. If his hands had been free, Don would have
applauded the universe's twisted sense of humor.
Instead, Don bucked his hips up into Charlie's, intensifying the connection,
hands loosening their grip and finding their way under Charlie's tee, circling,
tracking each ridge of muscle and bone, feeling how Charlie fit together. He
pressed his fingers deep into Charlie's flesh, drawing them up along the line
of his shoulder blades, and Charlie shuddered against him, raking blunt nails
down Don's side. And if it was too much it still wasn't enough. Don pushed
Charlie up, scrabbling at the hem of his tee and hauling it over his head.
"Off," he panted. "All of it."
It was a blur then, the scramble to get naked, Charlie's hands, his own,
everywhere, coming undone after so many years of being locked up tight. Charlie
rutting into the groove of Don's hip, intent and serious as his body arched
over Don's, demanding Don's attention, not letting him close his eyes. Without
thought, Don raised a hand to his mouth, slicking it with saliva that was
surely half Charlie's, and dropped it between them, bumping his hips to bring
Charlie in line. He took hold of them both, fumbling a little when his hand was
too sex-stupid to account for the extra circumference.
Charlie shook his head. "Not on your own this time," he said, leaning his
weight heavily to one side and holding up his own hand to Don's mouth. Don
licked it, almost on automatic pilot, sucking Charlie's fingers in, tongue
massaging the pads.
Charlie's dick twitched against Don's palm, but he shook his head again. "No
time," he said. "Need to touch." And he tugged his hand away to link it with
Don's, pressing their lengths tight together.
Don's whole body shook as Charlie started to stroke, pulling Don along with him
like he was the one who needed to play catch up, to get with the program of
just letting go. There was warmth bleeding out from more places than Don could
count: heat soaked dicks sliding together, skin superheated with tension, the
low down burn of building arousal and a curious glowing radiance that swelled
Don's chest and stopped his breath.
"This is going to kill me, Charlie," he said, hitting his closed fist off his
forehead.
Charlie didn't miss a beat. "Quite the opposite, actually. Some smart guy told
me that once and I believed him. Still do. Shh, now."
And Charlie bent down and stopped his brother talking with a kiss, hands
speeding faster until even that small distance between them was too much and
they collapsed into each other, Charlie hands on Don's back splayed like angel
wings, Don's spread across Charlie's ass, pulling him in tight, tighter still
as they rocked together and took each other to the edge.
"Can't. Hold," Don gasped, and brought his knee up sharp between Charlie's
thighs as he came between them, slick and warm, the infinity loop shattering
and reforming with every threading pulse.
"Hmm, nice," said Charlie, voice sounding far away as he raised himself on
outstretched arms, sliding slow and deliberate through the mess on Don's belly.
His eyes held the same dreamy quality that Don usually associated with Charlie
the moment before a great insight, and it made him feel more naked than his
bare skin ever could. He bent his leg up higher, Charlie's balls pressing into
it with every backwards thrust.
He watched as Charlie smeared the discrete trails of come into a new,
disordered configuration, using his dick to create patterns for once instead of
chalk, and he wondered if he could get hard again just from this. Whether
there'd be a chance to take Charlie's dick into his mouth, learn it from a
different angle. It turned out his little brother was bigger than Don elsewhere
than his brain after all and it wasn't the humiliation that Don was
expecting—just another interesting point on Charlie's curve and definitely
useful for further investigation.
"Nice," murmured Charlie again, and this time Don could feel the change in
Charlie's sac as the skin tightened, thickening and pulling away.
The dreamy expression fell out of Charlie's eyes with a soft, "oh!" and Charlie
let go all by himself.
Later, they sat side by side on the bed, Don sliding his feet into perfectly
laced brogues and Charlie complaining about how sneaker laces were definitely
more complex these days and, really, was it so wrong for an adult to love
Velcro?
Don watched him ramble for a long moment, the glowing heat he'd felt earlier
rising until it filled every cell in his body, every atom. He smiled and didn't
give in to the urge to fight it, breathing deep and even until it ebbed away
enough for him to speak.
"What happens next?"
Charlie's hands froze on the sneaker and he turned, head tilting as he
considered. "I don't know. It's been over half my life since the last time.
Nearly half yours. Who can say? Now you go to work, I go to work, we start a
whole new path. But it's always going to bring us back here to the center,
whatever else we do with our lives. I mean, it's a set, not a point, so
different time, location-" Charlie ducked his head and grinned. "Positions,
even…but the idea of the center still holds, with us infinitely drawn toward
it. I told you. It's inescapable."
Don leaned into Charlie's shoulder just a little. "Slightly disturbed?"
Charlie held up his forefinger and thumb, squinting through the small gap
between them with one eye. "Slightly."
And Don found that maybe—just maybe—he could learn to live with that.
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