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He's in the back when Don comes home, in a lawn chair with his head tilted back as far as it will go. Staring up at the blue sky through shifting green leaves, he hears the front door slam shut (don always slams the door shut, like he's shutting out the world), hears keys slide across the kitchen table. Fridge door, bottlecap, footsteps down the hallway, and Don's framed in the open back door.
"You trying to cool off all of Los Angeles, Charlie?"
Charlie waves at him with his water bottle, not bothering to get up. "I wanted to be able to hear the phone."
"In case of a math emergency?"
"There are math emergencies," Charlie says, because there are, but he mostly lets it go because he was listening in case Don called, and Don knows it. Even Charlie has to admit that Don's emergencies are a little more urgent than his.
Don's sleeves are peeled back to the elbows; coming back from the office, then, rather than just heading in. "Pull up a chair," Charlie says, raising a hand to block out the sun. "Dad's downtown."
"I know. Homeless shelter day." Don smiles a little, sits with the beer bottle dangling between his knees. He hasn't shaved, and his eyes are red and dry. "When I retire, I don't think I'll leave my house for a year."
"You don't have a house," Charlie points out, grinning.
Don grins back, and settles down into the chair. "All right, I won't leave your house," he says, and Charlie laughs because that's good. That would be really good.
It's still and calm back here, where any sounds from the street are muffled by the bulk of the house. Only yard sounds make it this far. The leaves rustle overhead, rushes of sound like waves against a shore; behind the fence next door, or the next one down, a dog barks now and then, and a child laughs, high and clear. Somewhere down the block, someone's mowing his lawn, the engine a distant, sweet drone that doesn't change the nature of the quiet. It's Charlie's favorite time of year, between the end of Spring quarter and the start of Summer.
"So, this is how you're spending your break?" Don says eventually. He's not looking at Charlie; he's got his shades on, his face pointed up to the sky. "Don't you have some killer math problem to solve, some prize I never heard of to win?"
"That was last week," Charlie says, comfortably smug. He has no classes to attend, no students to tutor, no seminars to give. He's turned off his cell phone, and Larry thinks he's presenting a paper in Milan. "This week, I'm not even thinking about numbers."
Don flips his shades back. His eyes are wide, and he laughs, a quick, disbelieving laugh. "You?"
"Believe it or not, Don, there are times when math is not necessary to my survival." He won't mention the hot, dusty morning in the garage, chalk in his hand and in his hair. He's showered and shaved and changed since then, but he can still smell it, feel the river of knowing skating past under his fingers. He smiles, remembering, and closes his eyes.
Don snorts, off to his left. Charlie's smile gets wider.
When Charlie was a kid, Don used to have to do this for him; pull him out of his head, get him back into the world. Charlie gets that he was a little messed up back then; everything just poured into him so fast. He's better at dealing with it now, or maybe it's just that he's getting close to full. Larry's worried that he's peaked already, hit the very top of his game. Charlie doesn't think so, but if it's true, he doesn't mind. He can find his own way out of the equations now, most of the time.
"So, you didn't." Charlie waves his bottle again, pointing at Don's clothes. "You didn't go home last night. You're working on another case?"
"Believe it or not, Charlie, there are times when the office is not necessary to my survival."
Charlie shifts, so it's easier to look at his brother. It's classic Don to come home dressed like he's never met an iron, with bags under his eyes and lines on his face and the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's classic Don to pretend everything is fine. It's a tough case, because it kept Don up all night, and it's a straight-forward case, because Don was up all night and never called Charlie.
"You were at the office," Charlie says confidently, and leans over to take away Don's beer.
"Hey."
"You're half-unconscious anyway. This'll just make you sleep badly." He takes a drink himself; the mouth of the bottle is warm and wet, the rest cold and slick with condensation.
"Who said anything about sleep?"
"I think I just did." Charlie smiles, and stands up. He holds out his hand for Don's. "Come on, you need to go to bed."
"I think you're a little confused about who's older than who, here."
Charlie rolls his eyes, and waits.
"You always hated that I got to stay up later than you," Don says. But he takes Charlie's hand, and Charlie pulls. Don's heavy, solid. Different from Charlie in almost every way. He comes up out of the chair slow and easy, though, and Charlie tugs again to pull him into the house.
Through the kitchen, up the stairs, past the photos that line both sides of the hall. Charlie thinks he looks different from all of the Charlies in all of the pictures, but all the Dons look exactly the same. They all look out of their frames with barely-disguised worry, like Charlie's the one who stayed up all night looking at things no one should ever have to see. Or maybe like they knew that someday, Charlie would have to.
Into Don's room, which is still Don's room though Don hasn't lived in it for years now. It's the big room, the room Charlie wanted and never got, not even when Don went to college, not even when Don got his own apartment. He owns the whole house now, but this will always be Don's room.
On warm nights, when Don was away, Charlie used to spread his notebooks across the foot of Don's bed and hook his feet over the headboard, surrounded by true crime novels and baseball trophies and pennants. It was always cooler here than in Charlie's room, always easier to think with Don's things around him, lining neat shelves and drawers. Charlie always thought it was strange that Don was the one who could build a clean, clear space that reflected the order in Charlie's mind. Charlie's room embodies chaos theory, jangling down his optic nerves and making it impossible to think.
Don sits on the bed, rubbing his face with both hands. "I'm so tired I can't even see."
"And yet you drove all the way out here, when your apartment was so much closer."
Don slants a look up at Charlie where he stands by the bed. "Fishing?"
Charlie shrugs. "You know you're welcome here any time, Don."
"I know that." Don reaches out; his hand closes around Charlie's wrist. Their eyes meet, and Don smiles slowly. "I do know that."
"You should sleep."
"I sleep good here," Don says, and that was what Charlie wanted to hear. He moves, and Don's hand slides away. On the other side of the bed, Charlie tugs down the blankets and the sheets. Everything's clean, freshly laundered once a week, just in case.
"This is a great impression of Mom that you're doing."
"I wasn't always off in my own world." Charlie laughs, and looks at Don to show him it's okay. "I mean, I know how to do things. I can take care of people."
"No kidding. You've pulled my butt out of the fire so many times at work, I'm thinking about putting you on the payroll."
"I am on the payroll," Charlie says.
"You know what I meant. I meant, on my team."
"I am on your team," Charlie says, and laughs when Don rolls his eyes.
Don kicks off his shoes, peels off his socks, takes off his pants and his shirt. He stands at the foot of his bed in a white T-shirt and white boxers, folding everything. When he's done, he puts it all in a neat pile on the chair by the window. He leaves everything there but his gun, which he leaves in its shoulder holster on the table by the bed. He checks first to make sure it's unloaded, and Charlie's not sure Don notices that he's done it. Dad doesn't like loaded guns in the house, and Charlie doesn't think he really likes it either.
While Don crawls between the sheets, Charlie closes the curtains at the window and the dark suddenly matches the coolness of the room. A stripe of sunlight falls across the floor, thin as a finger pointing its way to the door. Charlie follows it, puts his hand on the brass doorknob and turns back toward the bed. Don is flat on his back, one arm tucked behind the pillow under his head. "You're good to sleep now?"
Don opens his eyes. "If you're here when I get up, we could go out. Pick up some burgers or something, catch a movie."
"Case closed, I take it?"
"As closed as it's gonna get." He yawns, blank-eyed, already almost gone. "David's wrapping up the loose ends."
Charlie nods. He sees himself in the car with Don behind the wheel, windows down, jazz on the stereo. Don likes jazz more than he likes breathing; Charlie doesn't get it, but he gets Don, and that's good enough.
"Charlie?" Don pushes up on one elbow, squinting across the room. "Dinner, right?"
Snapping out of it, Charlie nods again. "Dinner. Yeah. Yes, I'll be here. Don't worry." He goes back to the bed, and pushes down gently on Don's shoulder. Don sinks back to the mattress, and Charlie can see the tension draining out of him, like current from a battery. "Sleep a while."
"You take good care of people." Don's eyes are closing again, his voice losing cohesion. He reaches up blindly, and finds Charlie's hand with his own. His fingers hold, just for a second, then slip away.
Charlie watches his brother; listens to his slow, even breaths. "I learned from the best," he says, and smiles.