Work Text:
Reactionâ€"
So now Charlie knew at least one of Colby's dark secrets. How would he react? Charlie's life was so sheltered, his family so perfect ... How could he even imagine seeing one of his parents commit suicide?
Colby waited nervously and watched Charlie's face. Charlie was frowning, rubbing his thumb absently over the back of Colby's hand, which he'd been holding when he asked his daily question. They sat on the couch in the solarium and it was a bright sunny afternoon, the world looking fresh and green outside the windows.
"Is it okay if I ask another question?" Charlie said quietly.
Colby nodded. He'd expected this - discomfort, uncertainty, more questions.
"Why?" asked Charlie.
Colby grimaced. "Are you sure you want to know?"
Charlie's eyes met his and Colby was surprised at the depth of compassion he saw there.
"Do you remember when I first told you that I loved you?" Charlie said softly. "I said that I was greedy, that I wanted all of you - the good, the bad, and the messy. I meant it. We've both been sort of avoiding the bad and messy because the good has been so ... good." He linked his fingers through Colby's. "I want to know, because you need me to know, and what you need, I need, whatever that is."
Colby took a deep breath. He should know better than to underestimate Charlie by now. He plunged in. "When I was thirteen, my parents got a divorce. It was an ugly divorce, very ugly. They had fought for a long time before the divorce. Everything was made worse by the very conservative church my family was part of, divorces just didn't happen."
"Mormon?" Charlie asked.
"No, but an offshoot of it. So, when the divorce finally went through, my parents made all of us kids stand up in court and say which parent we wanted to live with. They even made Mike do it, even though he was only six. We all stood up and ... I chose my dad, because I knew no one else would."
Colby looked down at Charlie's fingers laced through his. "My mom has never really forgiven me for that, but I couldn't just let my dad have nobody."
Charlie nodded silently and Colby continued, "My dad was a good guy, but losing the family hit him really hard. He quit the church, and church is pretty much the whole social organization in our town, so he was really isolated. I was just a kid and caught up in my own things. I was on the wrestling team and I had my own friends and ..."
He shrugged uncomfortably and met Charlie's eyes, which were soft and encouraging.
"My dad started drinking, drinking heavily." Colby said. "At first I'm sure it was kind of a statement, since the church didn't allow drinking, but it got away from him fast. A few days after my fifteenth birthday, my dad was driving drunk and he got in an accident that killed a mother and her baby. My dad walked away without a scratch.
"I remember him coming home, telling me what had happened, and very matter-of-factly getting out a hunting rifle and blowing his brains out."
Colby's eyes squeezed shut. The image of his father's head splashed across the kitchen wall was still as bright and vivid as it had been in that moment. He could still smell the blood and gunpowder, hear the sudden quiet in the world around him, as if even the birds had been shocked into silence, then the clunk as the spent rifle fell from his dead father's hand.
He slowly realized that Charlie was gripping his hand in between both of his.
"I don't remember anything after that. They say I calmly called 911 and waited on the porch for the police to arrive. I directed them to the kitchen then answered all their questions in an even voice. They took me down to the police station where my mom picked me up and took me back to the home I'd grown up in, like nothing had changed. They sent me to therapy and I went back to school and wrestling."
He finally opened his eyes and found Charlie kneeling on the floor in front of him, holding tightly onto Colby's hand, his eyes wide and glistening with tears.
Colby said distantly, "All of this, everything after my dad killed himself, people told me about. To this day, I don't remember the next six months of my life. It was like I woke up six months later to find a robot had been living my life for me while I was gone." He slowly shook his head. "And when I woke up, I was angry, so angry. I spent the next two years terrorizing my brothers and sisters and making my mother cry. Everyone, including me, was relieved when I got that wrestling scholarship and moved 2,500 miles away. It's a cliché, but I found myself at college. It was there I figured out I wanted to be in law enforcement. I loved school, loved wrestling until this new coach came along that I hated. I didn't let my family know how I was doing for over a year after I got to college, then it was just a short Christmas card."
Colby fell silent and looked down at Charlie. Charlie's lashes were wet, his face pale.
"And now?" Charlie whispered.
"And now ... I call my mom sometimes, probably three times a year plus Christmas and Mother's Day. I exchange Christmas cards with all my siblings but Tansy, because she doesn't really have a regular address. I send birthday presents to my nephews and niece, though I've never met them."
"Never met them?"
"Nope. Haven't been back to Winchester since I left for college, over fifteen years ago."
"Wow," Charlie said. "That's a long time."
"Yeah." Colby said, then they both fell silent. Colby's throat ached and his eyes burned and he wanted nothing more in the world than to pull Charlie into his arms and bury his tears in those soft curls ... but he couldn't. He said quietly, "I could have stopped him. I was big, even at fifteen, and could have taken him down before he pulled that trigger."
"Colby ..." Charlie said, his voice tight.
"God, I could have stopped him, but maybe I didn't want to." The tears he'd held back finally leaked down his cheeks. "Maybe I just thought he was a drunk bastard who deserved to die, so I let him pull the trigger."
"No, no," Charlie said earnestly. "You'd never do that. You were just a kid."
Colby glared at Charlie, suddenly angry. "Just fifteen," he snapped. "When you were fifteen, you were in some sort of elite college program, a math god and a certified fucking genius."
Charlie's eyes widened. "I had a family who supported me, didn't rip me apart."
"Sorry," Colby groaned, jerking away from Charlie and burying his head in his hands.
He heard Charlie get up and sit back next to him on the couch. He felt Charlie's arms around him, surprisingly strong.
"Colby, Cole, My Colby," Charlie murmured. "There isn't one evil atom in your body --I've checked. Even at fifteen, there is no way that you would have let your father die if there was any way you could stop it."
Colby lifted his head. "How do youâ€""
"I know," Charlie said, his voice throbbing with absolute certainty. He pulled Colby toward him until Colby curled into his arms. "In any quantum space - Euclidean, sequence, Lebesgue, or Hilbert - you are one of the good guys."
"Charlie ... I've done things, other things ..."
"Shh," Charlie said, running his hands soothingly over Colby's hair. "You don't need to tell me now."
"But ..."
"Shh," Charlie said again. "I love you and ... Well, I guess that pretty much covers it."
Colby startled himself with a faint chuckle. "No more math analogies?"
"I could come up with one if you want," Charlie said with a smile. "Something involving infinite-dimensional topological vector spaces, perhaps?"
"That would have been my choice," Colby said dryly.
Colby lay his head down in Charlie's lap and looked up at him. Charlie ran his fingers over Colby's face, in a touch both intimate and casual. So the Pandora's Box of Colby's past had been opened and nothing terrible had happened. They should both find some relief in that, and maybe that question-a-day would become less stressful, more fun, though Colby hoped that there were some questions Charlie never asked him.
Colby knew he should stop trying to shelter Charlie, but the need to protect Charlie was something he was always going to be fighting. Even when it was Colby he was trying to protect Charlie from.
"One of these days," Charlie said softly, "Maybe we'll take a road trip to Idaho."
Colby grimaced. There were so many problems with that, not the least of which was taking his gay lover back to meet his ultra-conservative family that still believed their missing son was heterosexual. Still, looking up into those big, brown eyes and that earnest, open face that he loved so much, he couldn't completely shoot down the idea.
"Maybe, Charlie," Colby said at last. "One of these days."