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numb3rsflashficTitle: Charlie Made Me Do It
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: NC17/Slash
Word Count: 3125
Spoilers: None.
Summary: “Do you think they’re disappointed in us?” Charlie had always been ahead of the curve, had always been praised and complimented, and the times his mother or father had been disappointed in him had hurt worse than anything he could imagine. Except losing them, and the thought of losing Don.
Notes/Warning: Sappy incest. Mention of character death. Takes place in the future.
Written: February 18, 2006
Charlie found Don in the living room when he dragged himself out of the garage. He sat on the couch, watching the tape their cousin Jane, who was actually their mother’s second cousin once removed, had made for their parent’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It consisted of copies of family photos and old home movies, and it looked like Don had just started it, because the pictures flipping past on the screen were from their parent’s wedding. Their parents, young, younger even than he and Don were now, smiling at the camera, looking a little amazed and a little shell-shocked, but happy. So very happy.
Don sat stiff, his back straight and his expression blank, and he didn’t look away from the television when Charlie sat down beside him, so Charlie remained silent, just leaned back into the couch and let his shoulder rest against Don’s. He rubbed his thumb against the back of Don’s hand, then settled his hand on Don’s leg and watched the tape with him.
Twenty-five years of their parent’s lives, right there on the screen. As well as his and Don’s. Seeing the pictures pass by reminded him of the time, years ago, that their mother had sat with him on this very couch and gone through the photo albums with him. Shown him some of the same pictures they were seeing now.
The day they’d brought Donny home from the hospital, the baby held by a smiling Margaret, with Alan standing behind her, beaming at the camera. Then pictures of Donny crawling, and learning how to walk, and wearing nothing but a diaper and a tiny baseball mitt.
Then came the pictures of Charlie as a baby. Donny sitting in the corner of the couch, his arms wrapped protectively around the baby he held, his head lowered as he’d looked into the brown eyes staring back at him.
From that moment, Charlie, all baby fat and brown curls, could always be found right next to Donny in the pictures. Sitting on the piano bench, dragging Donny’s bat, his little legs hurrying to catch up, giggling as Donny held him down and tickled him.
There weren’t any pictures of either of them alone until Donny turned fifteen and outgrew the little brother who’d always wanted to tag along with him.
Hair and clothing styles changed over the years, holidays came and went, and he and Don got older. They graduated—from high school and college—and Don played baseball and Charlie earned his degrees, and their parent’s got older, as well, but they still smiled at the camera. Still looked a little bit amazed at it all, a little bit shell-shocked, but so very happy.
Interspersed between the pictures of Don and Charlie were a few pictures of their parents—young Margaret and Alan at the beach, both happily posing in front of their brand new car, Margaret round with pregnancy, Alan teaching Don how to ride a bicycle and pulling Charlie in a little red wagon, both with arms wrapped around Don and Charlie at their high school graduation, Margaret with a baseball cap on at one of Donny’s games, and dressed in her lawyer’s suit to attend one of Charlie’s conferences—and it hit Charlie how much of their parent’s lives had revolved around him and Don.
When the bright and cheerful “Happy 25th Anniversary, Alan & Margaret!” filled the screen, Don stopped the tape and pressed rewind, then tossed the remote onto the coffee table. And still he was silent.
“What brought this on?” Charlie asked. He tried to keep his voice low, but it sounded loud in the silence of the otherwise empty house. When Don didn’t answer right away, he went on, filling that silence. “I mean, I forgot we even had this tape.”
“So did I.” Don opened the hand that had been clenched tightly shut the entire time they’d watched the tape. “I found it in a box. With this.”
Charlie reached over and touched his fingertip to the ring. Their mother’s wedding band. It was hot and moist from being held in Don’s fist for so long.
“Where’d you find it?”
“The bottom drawer of Dad’s night stand. I was just...looking....” Don’s voice cracked.
Charlie pulled his feet up onto the couch and curled into Don, wrapped his arm around his waist. “You know, sometimes I go in and just lie on their bed. I tried to read the book he left on the stand once.”
Don nodded, then said, “Isn’t that about zoning?”
“Yeah. It was a bit dry. But I imagined him reading it out loud. You know, like he used to when we were little.”
“A bit dry,” Don repeated. “Kind of like that book you bought on the, the, what do you call ‘em, millennium problems for me to read when I was sick that one time?”
“Hey, man, that stuff is interesting!” Charlie gently pinched Don’s side.
“Uh huh,” Don said, but he sounded distracted even as he covered Charlie’s hand and gently squeezed his fingers. Charlie watched as Don’s thumb played with the ring, turning it over and over in his palm.
“Do you think we should have put them in...in with Dad?”
“No. No, Charlie. They’d probably have been stolen before the casket was sealed. Besides....” He looked over at Charlie. “...I think they would have wanted us to keep them. Maybe pass them on to our loved ones, or our children.”
Charlie snorted. It was unlikely that either of them would ever have children. Unless they adopted. “Do you, uh, do you think they know about us?”
Don sighed, dropped his head back on the couch. “If the afterlife’s the way I imagine it, then yes, they know about us,” he said.
The one thing they’d always feared was their father finding out about them. Not because they were ashamed of their feelings for each other, but because they knew it would hurt him.
“Do you think they’re disappointed in us?” Charlie had always been ahead of the curve, had always been praised and complimented, and the times his mother or father had been disappointed in him had hurt worse than anything he could imagine. Except losing them, and the thought of losing Don.
“Oh, no, Charlie.” Don shifted on the couch, put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder and pulled him in close. “Maybe disappointed they’ll never have grandchildren, disappointed that things will be difficult for us, but not disappointed in us. Not in us.” He sighed. “Maybe in me, though.”
“What? Why? Don, what are you...?”
“Maybe they think I took advantage of yo—.”
“No,” Charlie interrupted. He wiggled around until he was on his knees, his hands cupping Don’s face. “No, Donny, no. Because if they know about this now, about us, then they know everything, right? Right?” he said again when Don didn’t answer, and waited for Don’s nod.
“Then they know how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you, and how hard it was for you, and why you went away, and how you tried to....” Charlie’s voice cracked and he fought back tears.
“Charlie, no, don’t do that, buddy, come on.” Don pulled Charlie into his arms. “Stop, okay, don’t.”
Charlie clung to Don, the one thing he had left, the one person he loved most in the world, irrationally afraid that if he let go, he might lose Don, too.
Don rubbed his hand over Charlie’s back, soothing him as he calmed down. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just, I was missing him, you know? So I went upstairs, and I was thinking about the empty drawers on Mom’s side of the bed, and when I found the tape and the ring, I just...I needed to see it, see them.”
“You didn’t upset me,” Charlie said into Don’s neck, and Don chuckled. “I mean, the tape didn’t upset me, it was just, you sounded like you were gonna....” It sounded silly now, to say ‘leave me’, so Charlie stopped speaking.
But Don, being Don, didn’t let it go. “Sounded like I was gonna what, Charlie?”
“Second thoughts,” he whispered.
“Oh, Charlie, no,” Don said. “I had my second thoughts, and third through twelfth, as well, long before we actually got together.”
Charlie snorted at that, and Don pushed Charlie back, laughing. “That was pretty, Charlie.” He stopped laughing and looked at Charlie. “You okay now?”
Charlie felt a little silly, but also relieved. “Yeah, I just.... I just didn’t want you to leave me, too.”
“Not gonna happen, bro.”
“Okay.” Charlie twisted around until he was leaning against Don, his head resting on Don’s chest, Don’s arm a comforting weight across his shoulders.
They sat there long after the click of the VCR when the tape stopped rewinding, just being together, letting the presence of the other ease the cares of the day away. Charlie felt Don’s chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath, and waited for him to speak.
“You know what I said about the rings?”
Charlie lifted his face a little, bringing Don’s jaw into view. “You mean about giving them to the children we’re never going to have?”
Don’s lips twitched. “No, the other part.”
“Loved ones?”
Don nodded.
“We don’t have any loved ones.”
“Yes, we do,” Don said.
It took Charlie a moment to play those words over in his head, but when understanding finally hit, he shoved back and stared at Don. “You mean...?” Don just stared back. “Really? I mean, that’s a big step, and w—.”
“Really, Charlie. I mean, we’re forever, right?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, his voice barely a whisper. “Are you sure?”
Instead of answering, Don reached for Charlie’s left hand. He tried the ring finger, but had to admit defeat and slip their mother’s wedding band over Charlie’s pinky.
Charlie held his hand up and stared at it, only able to look away when Don held something up in front of his face—their father’s wedding band, which Don had carried in his pocket since the day they’d placed Alan next to Margaret. Charlie took it from him, then almost dropped it when his hand shook.
Don wrapped his fingers around Charlie’s hand. “Charlie?”
“We’re really doing this,” Charlie said, and then he smiled. “I didn’t think, you know, that we’d ever....”
“I know,” Don said, and sat patiently as Charlie fitted the ring, finally settling it on the middle finger of Don’s left hand.
Charlie stared at Don’s hand, which suddenly looked so different now, with their father’s wedding band on it, the ring that now meant they’d made an even deeper commitment to each other. “What are we going to tell people?”
“The truth,” Don said, and Charlie jerked his head up to meet Don’s eyes. “I meant, the part about them being our parents’ rings, not the part about...us. Because we can’t do that, Charlie, as much as I’d li—.”
“I know,” Charlie said. He dropped Don’s hand and lunged in, trapped Don’s face between his hands and kissed him. Don laughed into the kiss, but Charlie didn’t care, didn’t stop because he couldn’t stop kissing Don, and finally Don stopped laughing and kissed Charlie back, and they didn’t stop until Don moaned into Charlie’s mouth. Charlie pulled back and kissed Don’s lips, his cheeks, his nose, until Don laughed again.
“So where are we going on our honeymoon?” he asked between kisses.
“Honeymoon?” Don sounded like he had something caught in his throat. Something besides Charlie’s tongue.
“Yeah. Of course, we’ll have to call it a vacation, but we’ll know it’s a honeymoon. I was thinking Hawaii. What do you think?”
“You were thinking...? When have you had time to think? I mean, we just did this thing.”
“This thing? And just now,” Charlie said, and kissed Don’s protests away.
“Hmm, Hawaii, huh?” Don said when Charlie finally let him up for air. “You know, Charlie, we can’t really get married.”
“I know,” Charlie said, sitting back on his heels. “But if we go to the right places, no one will even notice two guys who share the same last name walking down the beach holding hands. We could do that, right? Hold hands on the beach? Maybe even kiss?”
Don cupped Charlie’s nape and gently squeezed. “Yeah, Charlie, we could do that.”
“Excellent. You know, we should probably make plans now, because they probably get booked way in advance, and we don—.”
“Later,” Don said, pushing Charlie onto the couch and following him down.
“Don?”
“Later,” he said again, and slid one hand beneath Charlie’s shirt as he kissed him.
“Okay,” Charlie agreed, his breathing a little ragged as Don stroked his hand over the front of his pants.
Don buried his face into Charlie’s neck and groaned as Charlie lifted up, pushed into Don’s hand. “I want to fuck you, Charlie.”
“Okay, Don, okay,” Charlie said, his fingers digging into Don’s shoulder. “Now, okay, now?”
“Yeah, now.”
Charlie’s fingers felt numb and he fumbled the buttons, so Don helped him remove his shirt, leaned down and kissed his hip as he pulled Charlie’s pants down. When Charlie was naked, Don stood up and took his own clothes off, and Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off him.
“How do you want me?” he asked, and his breath hitched a little bit as Don just pushed his leg out of the way and knelt between them.
“Just like this,” he said, “so I can see you.”
Charlie moaned. “Mmm, okay.”
Charlie watched Don as he found the lube and squeezed some onto his fingers. Don’s face wasn’t blank, like it had been when he’d first come into the house, and Charlie was glad for the change. Don raised his eyes from his fingers and looked right at Charlie, and Charlie moaned softly at the fierce expression in Don’s eyes.
Don didn’t look away while his fingers found Charlie’s cleft, teased his hole before one pushed inside, then two. Charlie’s eyelids dropped closed as Don moved his fingers in and out of his body. Don said, “Look at me,” and Charlie forced them back open, let Don see everything he was feeling.
“Oh, Charlie.”
Don leaned down and kissed him, his tongue leisurely fucking his mouth as his fingers fucked Charlie’s ass. Charlie’s hands were all over Don’s shoulders, down his back.
“Don, please,” Charlie breathed, and Don pushed a third finger inside him.
Don kissed the corner of Charlie’s mouth, then his throat. He laved Charlie’s nipple, then dipped his tongue into his bellybutton. He kissed the tip of Charlie’s cock, then looked up at him as he licked Charlie’s pre-come off his lips.
Charlie reached out and touched Don’s lips, then dragged him up so he could kiss him, taste himself on Don. And still, Don’s fingers moved inside him, filling him, stretching him.
“I need you, Donny,” Charlie said against Don’s lips, and Don groaned. He pulled away just far enough to gently remove his fingers and slick his cock, and then Don pushed back inside him and Charlie moaned. “Oh, yeah, that feels so good. So good. So....”
Don pressed Charlie’s legs back and slid in further.
“Oh, god yes, just....”
Don thrust.
“...like that, fuck me, Don.”
“Shut up, Charlie,” Don said through clenched teeth, “or I will come without you.”
Charlie couldn’t stop the little moan at the idea that Don was so far gone. He reached for his cock and wiggled his ass.
Don managed to grab Charlie’s hand before it reached his cock despite his groan of almost-pain when Charlie wiggled. “Without you means without you, Charlie,” he said.
Charlie ignored the implicit threat and reached for Don’s hand. He’d noticed the way Don seemed just as mesmerized as he was by the rings. He brought Don’s hand to his lips and kissed the ring.
“Charlie.”
He licked the ring, then licked between Don’s fingers.
“Oh, Charlie.”
Don let go of Charlie’s hand and grasped the back of his thigh, spread him open, and fucked him.
Charlie had gotten turned on from the way Don reacted to his tongue on his fingers, on the ring, and he got even more turned on from the knowledge that Don was watching his cock move in and out of Charlie.
“Come on, Don,” Charlie whispered as he rubbed his heel against the back of Don’s leg, “fuck me,” and then he sucked Don’s finger into his mouth.
“Fuck, oh fuck, Charlie.”
Charlie let his eyes fall shut. He could still make Don out through his lashes, but the feel of Don’s hand on his leg, the slap of skin on skin as Don thrust into him, seemed more intense when he couldn’t see it clearly. His eyelids fluttered each time Don brushed his prostate.
Don pushed Charlie’s leg back until Charlie thought he might break in two, and buried his face in Charlie’s shoulder as his thrusts grew harder, faster, more erratic.
Charlie wrapped his leg around Don’s back and squeezed at the delicious friction of his cock rubbing against Don’s belly. He pulled Don’s finger out of his mouth as heat coiled in his lower back, and spread to his balls. He heard himself saying Don’s name, and Don’s answering call, and then there were bright lights behind his eyes and he flew apart.
Charlie could feel Don on top of him, could feel their fingers intertwined and pressed into the couch, and Don’s hair beneath his hand, but he couldn’t open his eyes or form words. So he rested, content to just be there with Don. Which was convenient, since he didn’t think he could move.
When he could finally speak, Charlie said, “So, Hawaii, when do you think you could get time off?” and felt Don’s chuckle against his skin.
Don lifted his head. “You get something in your head, and you just never give up, do you, Charlie?”
Charlie pushed Don’s damp hair off his forehead. “Not when it’s something I really want,” he said.
“Are you still talking about Hawaii, or me?” Don asked.
Charlie grinned. “Both.”
Don laughed. “You know, that is just like you.” He tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Did you hear him? He just admitted that this is all his fault. Charlie made me do it!”
And as if twenty-five years had melted away, they both heard their mother’s voice. “Now, Donny, Charlie’s just a baby. He couldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
Charlie just smiled innocently up at Don.
“See? Now that’s it. That’s the expression that got me into trouble every single time.”
“Still does, apparently,” Charlie said, “now shut up and kiss me.”
And Don did.
The End
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: NC17/Slash
Word Count: 3125
Spoilers: None.
Summary: “Do you think they’re disappointed in us?” Charlie had always been ahead of the curve, had always been praised and complimented, and the times his mother or father had been disappointed in him had hurt worse than anything he could imagine. Except losing them, and the thought of losing Don.
Notes/Warning: Sappy incest. Mention of character death. Takes place in the future.
Written: February 18, 2006
Charlie found Don in the living room when he dragged himself out of the garage. He sat on the couch, watching the tape their cousin Jane, who was actually their mother’s second cousin once removed, had made for their parent’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It consisted of copies of family photos and old home movies, and it looked like Don had just started it, because the pictures flipping past on the screen were from their parent’s wedding. Their parents, young, younger even than he and Don were now, smiling at the camera, looking a little amazed and a little shell-shocked, but happy. So very happy.
Don sat stiff, his back straight and his expression blank, and he didn’t look away from the television when Charlie sat down beside him, so Charlie remained silent, just leaned back into the couch and let his shoulder rest against Don’s. He rubbed his thumb against the back of Don’s hand, then settled his hand on Don’s leg and watched the tape with him.
Twenty-five years of their parent’s lives, right there on the screen. As well as his and Don’s. Seeing the pictures pass by reminded him of the time, years ago, that their mother had sat with him on this very couch and gone through the photo albums with him. Shown him some of the same pictures they were seeing now.
The day they’d brought Donny home from the hospital, the baby held by a smiling Margaret, with Alan standing behind her, beaming at the camera. Then pictures of Donny crawling, and learning how to walk, and wearing nothing but a diaper and a tiny baseball mitt.
Then came the pictures of Charlie as a baby. Donny sitting in the corner of the couch, his arms wrapped protectively around the baby he held, his head lowered as he’d looked into the brown eyes staring back at him.
From that moment, Charlie, all baby fat and brown curls, could always be found right next to Donny in the pictures. Sitting on the piano bench, dragging Donny’s bat, his little legs hurrying to catch up, giggling as Donny held him down and tickled him.
There weren’t any pictures of either of them alone until Donny turned fifteen and outgrew the little brother who’d always wanted to tag along with him.
Hair and clothing styles changed over the years, holidays came and went, and he and Don got older. They graduated—from high school and college—and Don played baseball and Charlie earned his degrees, and their parent’s got older, as well, but they still smiled at the camera. Still looked a little bit amazed at it all, a little bit shell-shocked, but so very happy.
Interspersed between the pictures of Don and Charlie were a few pictures of their parents—young Margaret and Alan at the beach, both happily posing in front of their brand new car, Margaret round with pregnancy, Alan teaching Don how to ride a bicycle and pulling Charlie in a little red wagon, both with arms wrapped around Don and Charlie at their high school graduation, Margaret with a baseball cap on at one of Donny’s games, and dressed in her lawyer’s suit to attend one of Charlie’s conferences—and it hit Charlie how much of their parent’s lives had revolved around him and Don.
When the bright and cheerful “Happy 25th Anniversary, Alan & Margaret!” filled the screen, Don stopped the tape and pressed rewind, then tossed the remote onto the coffee table. And still he was silent.
“What brought this on?” Charlie asked. He tried to keep his voice low, but it sounded loud in the silence of the otherwise empty house. When Don didn’t answer right away, he went on, filling that silence. “I mean, I forgot we even had this tape.”
“So did I.” Don opened the hand that had been clenched tightly shut the entire time they’d watched the tape. “I found it in a box. With this.”
Charlie reached over and touched his fingertip to the ring. Their mother’s wedding band. It was hot and moist from being held in Don’s fist for so long.
“Where’d you find it?”
“The bottom drawer of Dad’s night stand. I was just...looking....” Don’s voice cracked.
Charlie pulled his feet up onto the couch and curled into Don, wrapped his arm around his waist. “You know, sometimes I go in and just lie on their bed. I tried to read the book he left on the stand once.”
Don nodded, then said, “Isn’t that about zoning?”
“Yeah. It was a bit dry. But I imagined him reading it out loud. You know, like he used to when we were little.”
“A bit dry,” Don repeated. “Kind of like that book you bought on the, the, what do you call ‘em, millennium problems for me to read when I was sick that one time?”
“Hey, man, that stuff is interesting!” Charlie gently pinched Don’s side.
“Uh huh,” Don said, but he sounded distracted even as he covered Charlie’s hand and gently squeezed his fingers. Charlie watched as Don’s thumb played with the ring, turning it over and over in his palm.
“Do you think we should have put them in...in with Dad?”
“No. No, Charlie. They’d probably have been stolen before the casket was sealed. Besides....” He looked over at Charlie. “...I think they would have wanted us to keep them. Maybe pass them on to our loved ones, or our children.”
Charlie snorted. It was unlikely that either of them would ever have children. Unless they adopted. “Do you, uh, do you think they know about us?”
Don sighed, dropped his head back on the couch. “If the afterlife’s the way I imagine it, then yes, they know about us,” he said.
The one thing they’d always feared was their father finding out about them. Not because they were ashamed of their feelings for each other, but because they knew it would hurt him.
“Do you think they’re disappointed in us?” Charlie had always been ahead of the curve, had always been praised and complimented, and the times his mother or father had been disappointed in him had hurt worse than anything he could imagine. Except losing them, and the thought of losing Don.
“Oh, no, Charlie.” Don shifted on the couch, put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder and pulled him in close. “Maybe disappointed they’ll never have grandchildren, disappointed that things will be difficult for us, but not disappointed in us. Not in us.” He sighed. “Maybe in me, though.”
“What? Why? Don, what are you...?”
“Maybe they think I took advantage of yo—.”
“No,” Charlie interrupted. He wiggled around until he was on his knees, his hands cupping Don’s face. “No, Donny, no. Because if they know about this now, about us, then they know everything, right? Right?” he said again when Don didn’t answer, and waited for Don’s nod.
“Then they know how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you, and how hard it was for you, and why you went away, and how you tried to....” Charlie’s voice cracked and he fought back tears.
“Charlie, no, don’t do that, buddy, come on.” Don pulled Charlie into his arms. “Stop, okay, don’t.”
Charlie clung to Don, the one thing he had left, the one person he loved most in the world, irrationally afraid that if he let go, he might lose Don, too.
Don rubbed his hand over Charlie’s back, soothing him as he calmed down. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just, I was missing him, you know? So I went upstairs, and I was thinking about the empty drawers on Mom’s side of the bed, and when I found the tape and the ring, I just...I needed to see it, see them.”
“You didn’t upset me,” Charlie said into Don’s neck, and Don chuckled. “I mean, the tape didn’t upset me, it was just, you sounded like you were gonna....” It sounded silly now, to say ‘leave me’, so Charlie stopped speaking.
But Don, being Don, didn’t let it go. “Sounded like I was gonna what, Charlie?”
“Second thoughts,” he whispered.
“Oh, Charlie, no,” Don said. “I had my second thoughts, and third through twelfth, as well, long before we actually got together.”
Charlie snorted at that, and Don pushed Charlie back, laughing. “That was pretty, Charlie.” He stopped laughing and looked at Charlie. “You okay now?”
Charlie felt a little silly, but also relieved. “Yeah, I just.... I just didn’t want you to leave me, too.”
“Not gonna happen, bro.”
“Okay.” Charlie twisted around until he was leaning against Don, his head resting on Don’s chest, Don’s arm a comforting weight across his shoulders.
They sat there long after the click of the VCR when the tape stopped rewinding, just being together, letting the presence of the other ease the cares of the day away. Charlie felt Don’s chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath, and waited for him to speak.
“You know what I said about the rings?”
Charlie lifted his face a little, bringing Don’s jaw into view. “You mean about giving them to the children we’re never going to have?”
Don’s lips twitched. “No, the other part.”
“Loved ones?”
Don nodded.
“We don’t have any loved ones.”
“Yes, we do,” Don said.
It took Charlie a moment to play those words over in his head, but when understanding finally hit, he shoved back and stared at Don. “You mean...?” Don just stared back. “Really? I mean, that’s a big step, and w—.”
“Really, Charlie. I mean, we’re forever, right?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, his voice barely a whisper. “Are you sure?”
Instead of answering, Don reached for Charlie’s left hand. He tried the ring finger, but had to admit defeat and slip their mother’s wedding band over Charlie’s pinky.
Charlie held his hand up and stared at it, only able to look away when Don held something up in front of his face—their father’s wedding band, which Don had carried in his pocket since the day they’d placed Alan next to Margaret. Charlie took it from him, then almost dropped it when his hand shook.
Don wrapped his fingers around Charlie’s hand. “Charlie?”
“We’re really doing this,” Charlie said, and then he smiled. “I didn’t think, you know, that we’d ever....”
“I know,” Don said, and sat patiently as Charlie fitted the ring, finally settling it on the middle finger of Don’s left hand.
Charlie stared at Don’s hand, which suddenly looked so different now, with their father’s wedding band on it, the ring that now meant they’d made an even deeper commitment to each other. “What are we going to tell people?”
“The truth,” Don said, and Charlie jerked his head up to meet Don’s eyes. “I meant, the part about them being our parents’ rings, not the part about...us. Because we can’t do that, Charlie, as much as I’d li—.”
“I know,” Charlie said. He dropped Don’s hand and lunged in, trapped Don’s face between his hands and kissed him. Don laughed into the kiss, but Charlie didn’t care, didn’t stop because he couldn’t stop kissing Don, and finally Don stopped laughing and kissed Charlie back, and they didn’t stop until Don moaned into Charlie’s mouth. Charlie pulled back and kissed Don’s lips, his cheeks, his nose, until Don laughed again.
“So where are we going on our honeymoon?” he asked between kisses.
“Honeymoon?” Don sounded like he had something caught in his throat. Something besides Charlie’s tongue.
“Yeah. Of course, we’ll have to call it a vacation, but we’ll know it’s a honeymoon. I was thinking Hawaii. What do you think?”
“You were thinking...? When have you had time to think? I mean, we just did this thing.”
“This thing? And just now,” Charlie said, and kissed Don’s protests away.
“Hmm, Hawaii, huh?” Don said when Charlie finally let him up for air. “You know, Charlie, we can’t really get married.”
“I know,” Charlie said, sitting back on his heels. “But if we go to the right places, no one will even notice two guys who share the same last name walking down the beach holding hands. We could do that, right? Hold hands on the beach? Maybe even kiss?”
Don cupped Charlie’s nape and gently squeezed. “Yeah, Charlie, we could do that.”
“Excellent. You know, we should probably make plans now, because they probably get booked way in advance, and we don—.”
“Later,” Don said, pushing Charlie onto the couch and following him down.
“Don?”
“Later,” he said again, and slid one hand beneath Charlie’s shirt as he kissed him.
“Okay,” Charlie agreed, his breathing a little ragged as Don stroked his hand over the front of his pants.
Don buried his face into Charlie’s neck and groaned as Charlie lifted up, pushed into Don’s hand. “I want to fuck you, Charlie.”
“Okay, Don, okay,” Charlie said, his fingers digging into Don’s shoulder. “Now, okay, now?”
“Yeah, now.”
Charlie’s fingers felt numb and he fumbled the buttons, so Don helped him remove his shirt, leaned down and kissed his hip as he pulled Charlie’s pants down. When Charlie was naked, Don stood up and took his own clothes off, and Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off him.
“How do you want me?” he asked, and his breath hitched a little bit as Don just pushed his leg out of the way and knelt between them.
“Just like this,” he said, “so I can see you.”
Charlie moaned. “Mmm, okay.”
Charlie watched Don as he found the lube and squeezed some onto his fingers. Don’s face wasn’t blank, like it had been when he’d first come into the house, and Charlie was glad for the change. Don raised his eyes from his fingers and looked right at Charlie, and Charlie moaned softly at the fierce expression in Don’s eyes.
Don didn’t look away while his fingers found Charlie’s cleft, teased his hole before one pushed inside, then two. Charlie’s eyelids dropped closed as Don moved his fingers in and out of his body. Don said, “Look at me,” and Charlie forced them back open, let Don see everything he was feeling.
“Oh, Charlie.”
Don leaned down and kissed him, his tongue leisurely fucking his mouth as his fingers fucked Charlie’s ass. Charlie’s hands were all over Don’s shoulders, down his back.
“Don, please,” Charlie breathed, and Don pushed a third finger inside him.
Don kissed the corner of Charlie’s mouth, then his throat. He laved Charlie’s nipple, then dipped his tongue into his bellybutton. He kissed the tip of Charlie’s cock, then looked up at him as he licked Charlie’s pre-come off his lips.
Charlie reached out and touched Don’s lips, then dragged him up so he could kiss him, taste himself on Don. And still, Don’s fingers moved inside him, filling him, stretching him.
“I need you, Donny,” Charlie said against Don’s lips, and Don groaned. He pulled away just far enough to gently remove his fingers and slick his cock, and then Don pushed back inside him and Charlie moaned. “Oh, yeah, that feels so good. So good. So....”
Don pressed Charlie’s legs back and slid in further.
“Oh, god yes, just....”
Don thrust.
“...like that, fuck me, Don.”
“Shut up, Charlie,” Don said through clenched teeth, “or I will come without you.”
Charlie couldn’t stop the little moan at the idea that Don was so far gone. He reached for his cock and wiggled his ass.
Don managed to grab Charlie’s hand before it reached his cock despite his groan of almost-pain when Charlie wiggled. “Without you means without you, Charlie,” he said.
Charlie ignored the implicit threat and reached for Don’s hand. He’d noticed the way Don seemed just as mesmerized as he was by the rings. He brought Don’s hand to his lips and kissed the ring.
“Charlie.”
He licked the ring, then licked between Don’s fingers.
“Oh, Charlie.”
Don let go of Charlie’s hand and grasped the back of his thigh, spread him open, and fucked him.
Charlie had gotten turned on from the way Don reacted to his tongue on his fingers, on the ring, and he got even more turned on from the knowledge that Don was watching his cock move in and out of Charlie.
“Come on, Don,” Charlie whispered as he rubbed his heel against the back of Don’s leg, “fuck me,” and then he sucked Don’s finger into his mouth.
“Fuck, oh fuck, Charlie.”
Charlie let his eyes fall shut. He could still make Don out through his lashes, but the feel of Don’s hand on his leg, the slap of skin on skin as Don thrust into him, seemed more intense when he couldn’t see it clearly. His eyelids fluttered each time Don brushed his prostate.
Don pushed Charlie’s leg back until Charlie thought he might break in two, and buried his face in Charlie’s shoulder as his thrusts grew harder, faster, more erratic.
Charlie wrapped his leg around Don’s back and squeezed at the delicious friction of his cock rubbing against Don’s belly. He pulled Don’s finger out of his mouth as heat coiled in his lower back, and spread to his balls. He heard himself saying Don’s name, and Don’s answering call, and then there were bright lights behind his eyes and he flew apart.
Charlie could feel Don on top of him, could feel their fingers intertwined and pressed into the couch, and Don’s hair beneath his hand, but he couldn’t open his eyes or form words. So he rested, content to just be there with Don. Which was convenient, since he didn’t think he could move.
When he could finally speak, Charlie said, “So, Hawaii, when do you think you could get time off?” and felt Don’s chuckle against his skin.
Don lifted his head. “You get something in your head, and you just never give up, do you, Charlie?”
Charlie pushed Don’s damp hair off his forehead. “Not when it’s something I really want,” he said.
“Are you still talking about Hawaii, or me?” Don asked.
Charlie grinned. “Both.”
Don laughed. “You know, that is just like you.” He tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Did you hear him? He just admitted that this is all his fault. Charlie made me do it!”
And as if twenty-five years had melted away, they both heard their mother’s voice. “Now, Donny, Charlie’s just a baby. He couldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
Charlie just smiled innocently up at Don.
“See? Now that’s it. That’s the expression that got me into trouble every single time.”
“Still does, apparently,” Charlie said, “now shut up and kiss me.”
And Don did.
