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It’s going to sound stupid to say, but Mac thinks he and Charlie are connected on some, like, cosmic level or some shit. Like how twins can feel each other’s pain or whatever, Mac thinks he and Charlie have that. Maybe it’s because they’ve known each other practically their entire lives. Maybe it’s because they spend so much time together it was bound to happen. Maybe it’s a side effect of having been through so much shit together. But Mac’s gut is never wrong when it comes to Charlie.
Never.
When they were 7, Mac remembers feeling anxious all day, like something bad was going to happen. Charlie was trying to comfort him, up in the tree they used to climb, and as he reached out to put his arm around Mac’s shoulders, he wobbled and fell backward and broke his arm. Mac cried for days, insisting it was his fault, but Charlie just gave him this little grin. “Don’t worry, Ronnie, I’ll be good as new soon. Then we can go climbing again.”
He’s having a night like that again. It’s storming like a bitch outside, rain pounding hard against his window and the roof over his head, thunder booming and lightning shaking the whole house. It’s off-putting. It’s unsettling.
It makes him feel like something bad is going to happen.
Then he hears it. Through the rain and the thunder and the chaos, pounding on his front door. How he hears it he has no fucking idea, he shouldn’t have heard it at all, that’s how loud it was outside. But he does hear it, cutting through the noise like a knife, sending a shiver down his spine. The knocks are quick and rapid and never-ending, and as he races down the stairs, he isn’t sure he wants to know what’s on the other side. He’s scared, because he thinks he’s going to know. He can feel that feeling taking him over, making him queasy and shaky.
“Charlie, dude-” Mac flings the door open, speaking before he even finishes opening it, and as he reaches out to take Charlie’s wrist, he pulls away.
It’s the saddest fucking sight Mac thinks he’s ever seen.
Charlie’s drenched from head to toe, shivering in the rain, his clothes plastered to him. He can see his ribs through his soaked white t-shirt, and as the thunder booms overhead, Mac can tell it just covered a sob Charlie’s desperately trying to choke back.
Water dripping off his hair into his eyes, Charlie reaches a hand up to push it out of his face, and when lightning strikes, that’s when Mac really sees it, in slow motion like he’s in some kind of sickening movie montage.
Busted knuckles, bloody and raw and strikingly red, sliding through wet curls. A split lip, barely scabbed over like it’s fresh. Tear tracks on his fave visible even in the storm sent by God. And then what makes Mac’s stomach drop.
Ghosts of fingers, warped over Charlie’s throat, bruising black and blue all the way around.
He swallows down the bile that rises in his throat, forcing back the urge to vomit, and tries to reach for Charlie’s wrist again.
“Please come inside, Charlie.” he chokes out, wanting nothing more than for the two of them to disappear, get out of this fucking hellhole and run away together. “Please, man.”
“Nah, man.” Charlie croaks. He’s openly weeping, sputtering on his cries and looking everywhere but Mac’s face. “I was just stopping by. This won’t take very long.”
Mac wants to scream. He wants to scream, and yell, and punch something, punch someone , kick a fucking wall, run his fist through some fucking cinder block. His vision is dripping in red and his blood is fucking boiling under his skin, burning him alive from the inside out with nothing but pure rage.
“I’m gonna go away for a while, man.” Charlie chokes out. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, shoulders racking with the cries. He cuts Mac off before he can even speak, shaking his head. “Don’t ask me to stay, man. I can’t. I just…I gotta go. I gotta get the fuck away from him, dude, I can’t be there anymore.”
Now Mac is shaking his head back at him, unable to hold his own tears back any longer. “Please, Charlie. Fuck that, man, come on. Come inside, Charlie. I’m begging you. Please, come inside, Charlie.”
“I love you, man, but no fucking way.” Charlie gives him a sad laugh. “I’m gonna wait it out. Somewhere he won’t find me. Somewhere he can’t find me.” Mac takes a step outside into the rain, and Charlie finally lets him envelope him in a hug. Mac can feel his fingers digging into his back, inevitably leaving scratches, squeezing him so tight he can hardly breathe. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to let go. “I’ll come back in a bit, yeah? I swear it.”
“You swear?” Mac cries.
“I swear.” Charlie whispers, patting Mac’s back in a signal to let go. Reluctantly, he peels himself off of Charlie, wiping his face despite the rain. Charlie looks at him, lip quivering. “I’ll see you soon, Mac.”
And with that, he turns on his heel and he disappears.
Mac knows better than to follow him. That will only make things worse. Charlie always keeps his word. So Mac has to trust he’ll come back. He has to believe him, because that’s the only thing that will keep him going until he does come back. And he will. Because he swore it. And Charlie always keeps his word. Always.
--
It’s ten days. The most agonizing, sickening, painful ten days of Mac’s entire life. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t eat. He throws up from the nerves alone more times than he can count. He’s beyond miserable.
On day 3, he stops showing up at school all together instead of skipping out halfway through the day. On day 5, even his mother starts to notice something’s wrong, which says a lot. On day 7, Dennis knocks on Mac’s door before giving up after a half hour. On day 9, Mac doesn’t think he’ll last much longer.
Day 10 is when he finally feels some relief. It comes in the middle of the night, when he hears his bedroom window slide up, and the side of his bed dip under a new weight.
He can’t hold back the sob that makes its way out of his throat, immediately turning over and burying himself in Charlie’s chest. He holds him tight, tighter than Charlie probably wants, but it feels good. It feels good to hold him again. Feels good to feel him again.
He can feel Charlie’s fingers wrap themselves in his hair, playing with the curls at the back of his head, shushing him gently.
“Don’t leave again. Please, Charlie.” Mac hardly gets out. “I’ve never been so fucking bad, and I know that’s selfish, dude, because you had to do your thing, but please, Charlie-”
“I won’t. I promise.” Charlie whispers to the top of his head. He puts a finger under Mac’s chin and picks his head up, properly looking at him.
He doesn’t look much better than Mac assumes he looks. He looks exhausted. It’s probably been a brutal few days for him as well.
But as he looks at Charlie, the only light being the glow of the moon, split lip almost healed and the marks on his neck fading, he can’t help but think of how heartbreakingly beautiful he looks. He’s filthy, probably sleeping in the streets the last few days, Mac can see the dirt on his nose and he can’t even imagine the texture of his hair, but to Mac, he just looks like…Charlie. Beautiful, beautiful Charlie.
“Charlie-”
He doesn’t know what he was going to say, but he doesn’t have to think about it, because Charlie’s lips are on his, gently, cautiously, and it’s everything Mac didn’t know he needed but desperately craved. He wants to take it further, but Charlie pulls away and puts his chin on top of Mac’s head, and Mac realizes if this is going to happen at all it’s going to have to happen on Charlie’s terms. When Charlie’s ready.
He’s probably not sure what to feel, or think, or do. Mac feels the same, a lot of the time. But he’s got a gut feeling that it all ends with Charlie. And his gut feelings about Charlie are never wrong.
Never.