Chapter Text
A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
A Woman Waits for Me, Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Don felt himself drift in the comfortable buzz brought on by three beers, the easy laughter of his team, and the knowledge of a job well done. His Dad had already climbed off to bed, leaving the ‘kids’ to sit around and talk.
“Hey, Megan?” David asked. “Does having this conversation count as sexual harassment?” The conversation had gone from first bust, to first kiss, to lurid, embarrassing tales of losing one’s virginity.
Megan took a pull of her own beer. “I don’t know, David, are you feeling harassed?”
“Careful.” Colby said. “Don’t forget she’s an undercover shrink. Anything you say is open for analysis.”
Megan tossed a wadded-up napkin at Colby, who batted it away with a laugh.
“So whose turn is it?” Megan asked.
“Charlie hasn’t given us any lurid tales of nerd love.” David pointed out. Charlie was curled up against Colby’s side on the couch and was already a beer ahead of Don and at least two ahead of everyone else.
“Male or female?” Charlie asked brazenly.
“Chicks, please.” David said.
Don put his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to know,” he whined, to the amusement of the team.
“Rachael Wise.” Charlie said softly as if thinking about something else.
Don’s hands dropped from his ears. “What?!”
Charlie smirked.
“Did you say Rachael Wise, as in my high school girlfriend Rachael Wise?”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe.”
Everyone laughed. Don put his face in his hands.
“Well, you two were broken up, it was after graduation, she came by looking for you, one thing led to another.” Don’s hands had gone back to his ears.
“What she hot?” David asked.
“Co-captain of the cheerleading team.” Charlie said.
“Awesome.” David replied in guy solidarity.
“Just tell me it was in your room.” Don moaned feeling a little disturbed, though some part of his brain was trying to tell him that something more was wrong with Charlie’s story.
Charlie shrugged. “Well, we never really got as far as my room. Your room, on the other hand...”
Don groaned.
Megan laughed. “This is the kind of stuff you need to be worried about me analyzing.”
Everyone but Don laughed.
“So first guy?” Megan asked.
Charlie gave a melodramatic sigh and fanned himself. “Martin Smith, fellow prodigy, electrical engineering major, tall, blond, Mormon.”
“Mormon!” Colby exclaimed.
“Mormon, he’s got like twenty kids now. Do you know what it takes to get one of them out of their magic underwear?”
Don’s head shot up as a couple of synapses connected in the beer soup of his brain. “Wait a second! Rachael and I broke up right before prom.”
“Yeah.” Charlie said sounding a little annoyed at his story of Martin’s magic underwear getting interrupted.
“And you went to Princeton that September.”
“Yeah?”
“You were thirteen, Charlie!”
Charlie shrugged. “Yeah.”
Don was so in shock he couldn’t even speak for a moment. “It was illegal!” he finally sputtered out “Did you even know what was going on?”
“Well I like to think I caught on pretty quick when she started doing that thing with her tongue.” Charlie answered a slight edge to his voice.
Don blinked at his brother so casually curled up against Colby, beer held lightly between his fingers. Over the last year Charlie had shed the last of the awkward, boyish act and morphed into a confident adult with an easy sexual aura that turned heads. Even like this, he didn’t look small against Colby; rather Colby looked like an exotic pet to lounge against.
“I need another beer.” Don said and got up to wobble to the kitchen.
~
Don was staring at the fridge, not doing anything, when Megan entered the kitchen.
“Hey, Don, you okay? You’ve been here a while.”
“Yep. I’m great. My high school sweetheart’s a pedophile, my brother’s a victim, and it was on my sheets. Life is spiffy.”
Megan rubbed circles on Don’s back. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. Any problems Charlie may have resulting from that incident I’m sure he’s dealing with in therapy, and even if the statute of limitations weren’t expired, it would be her word against Charlie’s and I really doubt Charlie would want to drag himself and the family though that.”
“I know, it’s just… Fuck!” Don exclaimed and pounded his fist onto the counter.
“I know.” Megan said softly.
“I always thought I was protecting Charlie and I find out everyday just how miserably I failed at it.”
“Don, if you had truly failed with Charlie he wouldn’t be sitting in the other room, confident, successful, with someone who loves him.”
Don nodded his head. “Yeah.” He grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed back to the lounge.
When he got back to the lounge Charlie was explaining something using a beer bottle and an empty take out box as a prop. Judging by how much David and Colby were laughing he had a feeling it wasn’t a math theorem Charlie was trying to explain.
“Hey, guys, what did I miss?” Before Don could be caught up David’s phone beeped. He quickly looked at it and, though it was a little hard to tell, a bit of extra color rose in his cheeks.
“Ah...I’m gonna call it a night.”
The rest of the crew snickered.
“Well, you have fun with the rest of your night.” Colby teased as David tried to keep a straight face.
“Actually I’m going to head out, too.” Megan said. “I’m supposed to meet Larry at the observatory.”
“Say hi for me.” Charlie said.
Megan and David grabbed their coats and said their goodbyes.
“You heading to bed, Chuck?” Don asked.
“Yeah, going to call it a night. You?”
Don shook his head. “Nah. I’m still feeling a little wired. I’m going to watch TV for a bit.”
Charlie frowned for a moment and Don put on a smile.
“Okay. Try to get some sleep tonight.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, Don.” Colby said.
Don watched as they climbed the stairs and disappeared.
~
Charlie snuggled up against Colby, the warmth of his body relaxing already loose limbs. He gently kissed Colby’s chest and looked up for a kiss on the lips. Colby’s face was far away and pensive.
“Hey, what are you thinking?” Charlie asked with a little nudge.
Colby’s forehead creased in thought. “Charlie, what Don said tonight...”
Charlie stiffened. “What about it?”
“Were you…were you really thirteen?”
“Yes.” Charlie said evenly, unsure where the conversation was heading.
“How old was she?”
“Eighteen, nearly nineteen. She was a little older than Don.”
“Charlie?” Colby whispered his name, voice full of second-hand pain. Charlie pulled back a bit so he could look at Colby.
“It didn’t have anything to do with me. She was trying to hurt Don. Three years together and it ended badly just before prom.”
“Did you know?”
“More or less.”
“Then why..?” Colby suddenly looked hard at Charlie. “Did you say no?”
‘Come on Charlie, aren’t you curious?’
“I don’t remember.”
“How can you not remember?”
“It was a long time ago.”
‘Just lay still.’
‘Wait, Rachael…’
‘Shhhhhh’
“You must remember.”
“Only bits. It’s a strange memory. Like watching a movie with frames missing.”
‘Don’t you want to be just like your big brother?’
“Did you say stop?”
‘No, Rachael. Stop.’
“It’s unlikely.”
‘You don’t really want me to stop.’
“Charlie?”
Charlie looked the man he loved dead in the eye and lied.
“I don’t remember. She wanted me to tell Don, to piss him off. I never did and I don’t even know why I let her name slip out tonight. It must have been the beer. It had nothing to do with me.”
‘Charlie, Charlie. Always the shadow, always telling your brother the things you see. Are you going to tell him what you just did, little Charlie?’
‘No.’
‘We’ll see.’
Colby wrapped his arms around Charlie and drew him close. Charlie let out a long breath and ordered his body to relax. He closed his eyes and told himself that everything was fine.
~
Charlie cracked open his eyes and looked at the clock. 3 am. The math hour. He could feel the numbers spark across his mind. Sometimes they were unformed and he slid back into sleep. Other times…
‘Of course!’
Charlie slipped out of bed wrapping his bathrobe around him and headed down to the garage.
He paused as he walked past the living room. The TV was still on. Figuring Don had probably fallen asleep on the couch, Charlie tiptoed into the room and reached over to turn off the television. Don had been sitting so still Charlie assumed he must be asleep. He quickly glanced over his shoulder. Don’s eyes were open but not blinking.
“Don?” Charlie said softly.
Don blinked once. “Yes?” Don answered flatly. Charlie looked to his brother’s lap. A gun sat there and Don’s hands were gently curled around it. Charlie felt his heart stop, like liquid nitrogen had been pumped into his veins. He slowly approached Don and knelt down in front of him.
“Don. What are you doing?”
“Thinking.” Don answered flatly, still staring straight ahead.
“With your gun out?” Don flicked his eyes down for a second as if to confirm the gun was still there. He shrugged. “Don, why do you have your gun out?”
Don gave a chuckle. “Cognitive emergence.”
“What?”
“What does it take for a brain to make all these thoughts, that’s what you’re always thinking, what does it take to stop all these thoughts. To just have quiet. There has to be a balance right? Equations have to be balanced. That’s what you’re always saying.” Don slowly lifted the gun and looked at it. “Just a thing, a tool.” Don whispered, voice heavy with exhaustion.
Charlie found his limbs frozen as Don leaned his cheek against the barrel, in a quick move the end of the barrel was pressing into the skin of Don’s temple then just as quickly it was leaving a mark in the soft skin of his lips then under his chin. “What does it take, Charlie? How do you turn it all off? What’s the other half of the equation?” Don’s voice became cracked and raw.
“Don, give me the gun.” Charlie said evenly, despite the almost deafening pounding of his heart. Don gave a chuckle and let go of the gun so it was only dangling from one finger.
Charlie snatched the gun from Don, flicked on the safety, ejected the clip and pulled the slide back to retrieve the bullet from the chamber. Don raised an eyebrow.
“I might not be able to shoot one of these but I sure as hell can unload one.” Charlie quickly dropped all three bits into the pocket of his bathrobe. If he could have dismantled the whole thing he would have. He could feel the fabric strain against the unusual weight.
Charlie carefully took Don’s hands in his. “Do you do this a lot, Don? Think about balancing the equation?”
Don shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s worse in winter.”
“Why?”
“The sheets are cold, the nights are longer, the only thing in my fridge is fossilized mu shu pork and the milk looks more like cheese. I’ve got five bucks in my retirement account and I can feel my elbow start to hurt where I screwed it up pitching when I was twenty…” Don trailed off then suddenly looked at Charlie. “I’m so sorry, Charlie, I’m so sorry for what she did to you, I’ll bust her, I’ll kill her, it never should have happened, you never should have been there, I…”
Charlie shook his head and gently squeezed Don’s hands. “Okay. Don, listen to me. What happened with Rachael was a long time ago and my patterns of response to situations were already firmly established.” Don gave Charlie a questioning look. Charlie took a breath. “I was already broken, it did me no damage, it meant nothing, just a moment in time like any other and it only has the meaning I give it and I give it none and I now have a boyfriend, and a shrink, and a doctor, and a bottle of little pills I take every other day to help me, and what is wrong with me is getting better all the time, okay?”
“You’re taking drugs?”
Charlie nodded slowly. “Yes, Don.”
“You swore you’d never do that.”
“And I also swore I’d never see a shrink. Things change, people change. Do you get what I’m saying?” Don nodded. “Good. Also, you have more than five dollars in your retirement fund. I started a fund in your name when you moved back from Albuquerque. I know you took a demotion, I also know you took a pay cut. Most of it’s in money market, some property development but there’s also a good chunk of cash just collecting interest every month.”
“What? How?”
“I’m practically a line item in the federal budget these days. I am rich and you are my brother and I love you very much and you are not going to die cold and alone in the old agents’ home as long as I have anything to say about it. Okay?”
Don nodded again.
“Good. Okay.” Charlie let go of Don’s hands and put them gently on Don’s head. Don closed his eyes and lowered his head under Charlie’s soft touch. “Don, I need you to do something now. I need you to promise me you will not harm yourself.”
“Charlie…”
“No. No debate here. I need you to promise. I need you to swear by god, and mom, and the math you will make no attempt to harm yourself, no attempt to kill yourself, no driving too fast, no putting yourself in the line of fire. Nothing. Promise me this, Don. As my brother.” Charlie knew he was pleading but he also knew Don, knew Don didn’t break promises. “Please.”
Don took a deep breath. “I promise.”
Charlie slipped his hands from Don’s hair to Don’s face and tilted his head up. “Open your eyes. Look at me and promise.”
“I promise. I swear.” Don said softly. Charlie let out a breath. A strange smile quirked at Don’s lips for a moment. “Besides it’s against the rules isn’t it?” Charlie couldn’t help a half panicked chuckle.
“Don, if I thought you needed to be bound to all the Rules of the Arrangement, this would be a much longer and weirder conversation.” Don chuckled. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do.”
“Giving orders, Chuck?”
“Yes. You are going to go upstairs, get undressed, get into bed and go to sleep. In the morning you will get up, take a shower, put on your spare, clean suit, come downstairs, eat breakfast then look me in the eye. Depending on how much dark I see will dictate if you get your gun back.”
“Charlie…” Don began to object.
“No. My turf. These are my rules. When you go to work the first thing you will do is call Bradford and make an appointment for today. You will go down, you will tell him everything and we’ll go from there.
“He’ll take away my field status.”
‘Good!’ Charlie wanted to shout.
“No he won’t. They only do that if you’re a danger to yourself or others and you are neither because you have promised.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, repeat back. What are you going to do?”
Don sighed. “Go upstairs, bed, sleep, wake up, shower, clothes, breakfast, look at you, work, Bradford.”
“Good. And if you don’t go I will have Colby drag you down in your own cuffs.”
“I’m his boss.”
“I’m his lover.”
“Okay.”
Charlie stood and pulled Don to his feet with him. He felt the gun bounce against his leg.
Don made his way slowly up the stairs and Charlie followed. Don stopped at the door to his old room, long ago redone into a guest room, all signs of the crime that happened there long since washed away.
Charlie reached out and opened the door, motioning Don through it.
Don moved like a man asleep, striping off his clothes, letting them fall where they may. He climbed into the neatly made bed and shivered. “The sheets are cold.”
Charlie sat gently on the edge of the bed.
“I’ll stay until they warm up. Now sleep.”
Don nodded and closed his eyes. Charlie gently reached out and placed a hand on his brother’s head and left it there until he was sure Don was asleep.
~
Colby cracked his eyes open as Charlie entered the room. The clock said quarter to four.
“That was quick.” Colby mumbled, since he was rather used to Charlie staying awake at his boards until dawn. Charlie didn’t answer, only sat down heavily on the bed that wasn’t really made for two. There was a heavy clunk on the bedside table. Colby sat up quickly.
“Uh…Charlie, where did you get that gun?”
“It’s Don’s,” he answered flatly.
“Why do you have Don’s gun?”
“So he won’t use it.” Colby watched as Charlie began to shake. He quickly shifted so he could wrap his arms around Charlie, just in time. The heaving sobs came in waves like an ocean storm. Colby desperately wanted answers, but all he could do was watch Charlie cough and choke around the tears. He rocked Charlie whispering soft, soothing nothings. When the worst seemed to have passed Charlie looked up at him.
“Why?” he choked out. “I don’t understand. How could he? He pressed it to his lips right there in front of me. How could he?”
Colby didn’t know if he wanted to run to check on Don or shoot the man himself.
“Where’s Don now?”
“Asleep, next door.”
“Are you sure?”
Charlie nodded. “I stayed until he was asleep and he always forgets that the board outside his door squeaks so I’ll be able to hear if he tries to leave.”
Colby nodded. Charlie must have been in highly sensible mode when he put Don to bed.
“What did he say?”
“He wanted me to balance the equation, to make the thoughts in his head be quiet. He sounded so tired.” Colby winced inside. He knew about the Long Nights where you couldn’t make your own dark thoughts shut up long enough to let you sleep and one of your own bullets seemed like a perfectly reasonable sleeping pill. “Colby, have you ever…I mean..?”
“A few times, mainly in Afghanistan. That high up in the mountains the sun goes down quickly, the nights are dark.”
“But not since. I mean the FBI…” Colby sighed and tried to figure out how to explain that sooner or later every agent, every cop has a bad night where they get a little curious about what gun oil tastes like.
“We all have bad nights, Charlie. That’s why they screen as heavily as the do. Try to weed out the ones who can’t take it before they can’t take it.”
“But Don…”
“Don’s in a different situation from me. I’m a grunt. I rank somewhere between the janitors and the drug dogs. Don…Don’s the boss, and a good boss with a major reputation and a serious track record in the Bureau. If something goes wrong he’s the one who catches the shit and unlike damn near every other boss on the planet his shit doesn’t roll down hill. He doesn’t take it out on us, most of the time we don’t even hear about it and he’s got that same damn obsessive streak you do. It’s got to be done right, and if it’s hard or messy he does it himself. That’s going to wear someone down faster than normal.”
“But it’s Don.” Charlie said as if it should explain everything and in Charlie’s mind it probably did. Don was constant as 2+2.
“Charlie, you of all people should get where Don is. You live on that cliff; you’ve spent most of your life hanging over that abyss trying to get a better look.”
“But I’m broken.” Charlie said as if it were the simplest statement of fact. Colby held Charlie close.
“Oh, love, it’s the 21st century. We’re all broken, you just beat the rush.”
Charlie pulled away from Colby and put his head in his hands. “I made him promise. Made him look me in the eyes and promise.”
“That’s good. Don keeps his word.”
Charlie reached over and took the gun off the nightstand. In the dark it looked grotesque in Charlie’s hands. He flipped it around a few times and before Colby could say a word Charlie leaned over and wrapped his lips around the barrel. Colby’s heart stopped, he couldn’t breathe, his brain tried desperately to wake up from what had to be a nightmare. Charlie pulled his lips away and made a face.
“Yuck. Gun oil.”
Colby snatched the gun from Charlie’s hand.
“Don’t you ever, ever do that again! That was the worst thing I have ever seen!”
“I’m sorry. I just…I had to know.”
“Well now you know and don’t ever do that again!”
“Sorry.”
Colby double checked that the gun was in fact unloaded and took a few deep breaths. “Charlie, why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I can’t. I have to listen, in case…”
“Don’ll keep his word. You sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
Charlie nodded. “Okay.”
‘Oh, Don, you better keep your word.’