A/N: But Mitzi! Haven't you already written this story? Yeah, but I wasn't happy with how the last one turned out so here's a rewrite, complete with new warnings and everything:
Burning, vomiting, amputation, tooth extraction, refusing to eat, cutting (although not the self harm kind) self harm in other ways, and really, just….lots of Charlie being kinda messed up. Poor kid.
"Davis. My office, now." Dutifully, Charlie stumbles to his feet, and follows after Munro. It's been a long day, and he's tired. He stands in front of his desk, still trying to figure the new Super out. The man, as mysterious as ever, sets a collection of files down in front of him. "Do you know these people." Charlie nods his head yes. A picture of Mattie (taken where? He doesn't know) a picture of Mrs Beazley, (Taken out the front of the grocery store she frequented) A photo of Lawson (His ID picture.) a photo of Doctor Harvey (Her ID photo) and a picture of Blake. (He was actually there when the picture was taken, out the front of a cafe that he liked. His hand was in the left side of the frame)
"Do you like these people?" He nods his head again.
"Interesting. Take a seat, Sergeant." Charlie lowers himself down and clasps his hands together on his knees. "As you know, Blake was recently in China. As such, he's come up on a few..Shall we say, lists. I think it would be a real shame if...Something were to happen to his friends, because of him." Charlie nods his head again. "However, if a certain sergeant was willing to do what I ask of him...Then I could probably be convinced to...Give him some leway." He passes yet another file over to Charlie. "Read it. Then let me know what you think."
He opens it to the first page. He feels sick.
"I can't sign this."
"There's no place to sign. It's all verbal."Munro said, as Charlie flipped it over to the next page. He keeps reading before setting it down.
"This is a sick joke." He said, shaking his head. Munro shakes his head and sighs. "I can't agree to this!" Munro smiles slightly.
"I'm sure Mattie O'Brian will wish you did." he said, in a voice that made him sound more reptile then man. Charlie glances back at him, before stumbling out the door, shaking his head.
…
It takes Munro forty eight hours to respond to Charlie's refusal. Mattie is hit by a car. It's not fatal, thankfully. Charlie has no idea what he'd do if he was responsible for her death. Just a sprained ankle from where she fell on the gutter. But he knew what it was. It was a message from Munro, telling him that he only had one choice because next time, well...There wouldn't be any Mattie O'Brian left for them to fix.
He's sick when they arrive home, spends fifteen minutes in the bathroom emptying the contents of his stomach into the shiny white toilet bowl, before looking at his face in the mirror. He realizes he has no choice. Blake knocks gently on the door and asks how he's feeling. He lies and says there's a bug going around and he'll be fine by tomorrow. He won't be, but that's fine. It's all fine, he thinks, Lawson will be back soon and he will fix this mess. He has too.
He goes to bed with a familiar ball of worry in his stomach that fills him so entirely that eating breakfast feels like a task and a half. He eats just enough that Blake won't be suspicious, before getting him to drop him off at the station.
…
"I told you so." Munro said, from behind his desk. Charlie nodded slightly, and let out a soft sigh. "From now on, you turn up here, when I ask you too be here. No excuses. No second chances. If you fail, then one of the Doctor's friends suffers." He inclines his head in a nod. "Say it." He looks up, and his pride fights it at first but it doesn't take an awful lot of convincing.
"From now on, I will do what you tell me to do, no excuses and no second chances." He breathed, and Munro nodded.
"You can go now, Sergeant." He said, and Charlie does leave, and goes straight to the mens room to be sick again.
…
Munro calls on him for the first time that evening. "Sergeant." He greets. Charlie always thought he would enjoy being called sergeant but now he doesn't know. Munro makes it sound like an insult at him, rather then just his title. "How are you?" he asks, in a rather grim voice.
"Fine, Sir." he replied, perhaps a little tartly. Munro nods, and points at the chair in front of him.
"Sit." Charlie does.
"Put your hand up on the table." He does so. Munro nods, and takes the hand between his own. "Bite down on this."He said, passing Charlie a cloth. Charlie does as asked, already sort of knowing what was coming next.
Munro held up a metal skewer, where he could see it. Charlie looked at him, and then looked away with closed eyes. Munro made a clicking noise in the back of his throat. "Watch." He orders. Charlie does so. Taking Charlie's ring finger between two of his own, he proceeded to drive the skewer under the nail. Charlie bites down so hard on the piece of cloth in his mouth he thinks his teeth my crack. Because it just hurts so much.
Munro then pulls the nail out with a pair of pliers. His carefully cared for nail sits on the table now while he begins to bleed from the exposed nail bed. He keeps screaming until Munro wraps it up in a separate bandage. He pulls it protectively to his chest, sniffing furiously, trying to stop the tears of pain that threaten his eyes.
"You may leave now, Sergeant." Munro says, with his forked tounge smile. Charlie doesn't need to be told twice.
…
He does the logical thing, as soon as he arrives home, and takes it to Blake. Maybe, if he'd been more thinking, and paid more attention, then he wouldn't have. Maybe he'd have saved it for a worse injury. But he doesn't. He just knocks twice on the office door, comes in, and takes a seat.
Blake gives him a funny look, before he holds out his hand.
"I caught my nail in a door." He said, tensely. "And it bloody hurts." He unwraps it and shows it to Blake. "I've never lost a nail before. What should I do?"
"Wrap it up, and try to ensure it doesn't get infected." Blake said, reaching around in his drawer, before coming up with a roll of gauze. He tightly wraps Charlie's hand, and then lets him retreat to his bedroom. He cries until he falls asleep.
…
The next morning his finger hurts, but he ignores it and goes to work as per usual. He eats enough breakfast to satisfy Mrs Beazley, and then rides with Blake to work. Munro doesn't pay him any attention and he does nothing to warrant it.
Time passes slowly, Blake drops in to see him for a surprise lunch and inquire about his finger. He lies, of course. That's what he does best.
…
Munro calls for him again that evening. He goes, like a lamb to the slaughter. Munro says nothing about the bandage on his finger, but instead brandishes a pair of pliers. "Open your mouth." He said, and Charlie does.
The other man stands and walks over to him, gently stroking his chin before he he clamps the pliers around one of Charlie's back teeth, His jaw has begun to ache after being wedged open. He know what this is going to feel like, so he closes his eyes. Munro apparently doesn't like that because he stamps on Charlie's foot hard enough for him to very suddenly bite down and almost cry out in pain. "Eyes open." He insists. Charlie says nothing.
He keeps his eyes open as well as he can as Munro starts to apply pressure to his tooth, wiggling it back and forward until there is a horrible breaking noise in his ears and blood in his mouth. And then after some rather heroic strength on Munro's part, the tooth Is out of his mouth and in front of him. Root and all.
Blood is filling his mouth and dribbling down his chin, he blinks in shock as Munro offers him a clean tea towel. He takes it blindly, unable to remove his eyes from the small bits of gum stuck to the grey ish tooth that had previously been embedded in his jaw. He wants to scream.
He just let Munro pull a tooth from his jaw. The words don't seem to fit in the same sentence. It just feels wrong to him, but he does nothing about it. He has no way to explain this to Blake so he'll have to look after this himself, he thinks, blindly.
Munro waves him away, and he walks home, not even really noticing the long walk. He takes a polite pass from dinner, citing that he was still full from lunch as his reason. Blake, luckily, believes him. He wonders why later, because Blake was there, but at the time, he decides that it's better to simply not look a gift horse in the mouth anyway.
He studied his face in the mirror, the bleeding as at least seemed to have stopped. He stares at the hole for some moments, before he takes a shower, watching the water spatter against his toes and how it blasts away at the grit of the titles.
He goes to bed and cries himself to sleep.
…
Munro doesn't call on him the next day. He's so anxious that he can't eat in fear that he won't be able to keep it down. He makes sure he heads home late enough that no one will check he actually ate whatever Mrs Beazley left out for him.
"You seem tense." Blake said, as he joined the group of them in the living room.
"There was a fight at work today." He offers up.
"I imagine Bill Hobart was involved?"
"Yeah."
"That's hardly surprising." Blake scoffs. Charlie buries his face in his hands for several moments, but no one questions it. His jaw hurts.
He takes pain killers, and vanished off to bed, unable to really to much about it.
…
He doesn't like losing control very much. Actually, he doesn't really like much of anything that's happened to him over the last few days. But that's not really the point, is it? Munro calls upon him the next day, quite late in the afternoon.
He's not even a little prepared, but he doesn't care too much. He wonders if he doesn't react will it end faster? What was it that Munro even wanted from him? He doesn't know. He enters the room slowly, keeping his bad hand close against his chest and fully aware of how twitchy his movements seemed to be. The longer Munro stares at him, the harder it gets to breathe. Munro seems to know this because he lets Charlie sweat there for at least four minutes.
Then, he stands. "Shirt off." He orders Charlie, who obliges him. Two dark sweat stains had begun to show themselves on his blue police shirt as he folded it over and set it on the chair in front of him. Munro gives him a look that can only be described as contemptuous. Charlie can feel tears welling at the back of his eyes, but he holds them back and keeps taking in deep breaths though his nose.
"Hold out your arm." Munro said. So Charlie does. Munro shows him a sharp looking knife. His mouth turns to chalk suddenly. His wrists to jelly and no matter how hard he tries to force his hands to do as he said, he just can't hurt himself like that.
"Hold out your arm." Munro repeats.
"I-" He tries to say, but he can't.
"Are you talking back to me?" Munro asks, his face turning very grim rather suddenly. And Charlie's face pales he he finally gets his body to work in tandem with his mind again.
"No!"
"I think you are." he said, setting the pictures on the desk in front of him. "Pick one."
"No." He said, softly. "No, please, do whatever you want."
"I thought you understood how this works." He said, "Who am I going to have to punish?"
"Please don't." Is Charlie's only response. The only thing that can come out of his mouth. Munro clicks his tounge and removes the pictures.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Charlie leaves, but he drags his feet on the way out, not really sure what to do with himself now.
…
Blake isn't home when he arrives.
Which is good because he can skip dinner with no one noticing his absence. Blake might have said something, but Mrs Beazley and Mattie don't pester him. In fact, neither of them really talk to him much at all. Which is fine. He never really makes a great deal of an effort to talk to them anyway. It's just how he was, if he was honest.
He's sitting on his bed, carefully feeling around inside his mouth when Mrs Beazley screams. He's up onto his feet, pounding down the stairs, before coming to a stop in the hallway. Blake had arrived home, considerably more beat up then when he'd left that morning.
"What happened?" He demanded, even though he can feel the dread building in his stomach telling him exactly what happened. Mattie is ushering him into the surgery and Jean is preparing medical instruments and he's just standing here like an idiot. When it's his fault.
Blake huffed as Mattie helped him up onto the bed,
"I ha a bit of a fight with a fellow who wanted my wallet. He got away." Charlie can't even find any words as he watches Mattie carefully disinfect the doctor's wounds until Jean, apparently sensing his stillness tells him to go make Blake some tea.
So he does. He watches the tea turn from dark to light as he adds milk and stirs it carefully, as If the clinking of spoon onto cup would disrupt the proceedings to the evening. This is what Munro must want, he thinks, turning away from the tea and rubbing his lips carefully with his hand and dabbing at his eyes with his untucked shirt before the tears can even begin to fall. After several moments, he deems the tea drinkable and passes it to Blake, who gives him a small smile and his typical
"Thank you, Charlie." He smiles slightly back and nods.
"Welcome." He coughs out.
Mattie and Jean continue fussing, and seeing no reason why he should stick around, he retreats to the bathroom, where he retches and retches even though there is nothing in there to come out but the water he'd forced himself to drink earlier.
After several moments he sits back, and swallows deeply. He takes a deep breath, before he flushes the toilet, stands, and goes to the sink to examine his face and wipe away any trace of vomit off his face. He looks so tired, even to his own eyes. But it's only been a week, and he has a whole life time of this left to deal with. So he should just / suck it up / he tells himself. But when he thinks of Blake downstairs, all beat up and bruised, he retches furiously into the sink twice, acid burns his throat. But he doesn't mind because at least then he has something different to think about.
…
He's feeling lethargic the next morning. He knows that logically, it's because he hasn't been eating, but up until now he's managed to do a fairly good job of hiding it. But apparently not good enough because by the time he's downstairs, Blake, in all his bandaged glory, is filling his plate with eggs and toast bacon and tomato.
"Doc what are you-"
"Eat up Charlie." Blake insists. He looked around for Mattie or Mrs Beazley to save him from Blake's fussing, but Blake follows his serving by saying
"I sent Mattie and Jean out to get brunch." He smiled, "Here, eat."
"It's seven thirty. No one gets brunch at seven thirty." He replied skeptically, and removed a tea cup from the top cubboard. "Anyway, I haven't really got time. I'll just drink some tea then head to work."
"I already called Hobart. He's agreed to cover for you." Charlie narrowed his eyes at the doctor.
" What?"
" We're all worried about you. You haven't been eating, that's all." Blake said, "Please, sit, eat." So Charlie does.
He carefully takes his fork and stabs a piece of egg, before lifting it to his mouth.
It looks good, but it tastes like ash in his mouth. Blake doesn't seem to notice, but that's not unusual.
"How are you feeling?" He asks, after swallowing his eggs.
"Alright. A bit shaky." He admitted.
"Sorry."
" It wasn't your fault." Blake dismissed. Charlie looked down at his eggs and sighed softly. " It's not." Blake insisted.
"Well if I'd been home earlier I could have gone with you."
"Doesn't sound like fault to me." Blake continues, as Charlie continues to lightly pick at the food packed plate in front of him. "Anyway, then we'd both probably be beat up." Charlie scoffs slightly as Blake pours him a glass of juice.
"I am capable of knowing when I'm hungry." He said, quite proud of how he'd been able to keep his anxiety out of his voice so far.
" Well given that you've eaten almost nothing all week, I'm inclined to disagree." Blake said, eating his own piece of toast. Charlie sighs into his teacup and looked down at his plate, that was becoming more and more unappetizing by the minute.
He doesn't, however, want to disapoint Blake too much, so he begins to eat in large mouthfuls, until it's mostly finished and Blake decides that he's eaten enough, and walks him to the bus station.
While they wait, Blake speaks up "I'm serious, Charlie. Nothing that happened to me was your fault. So what's wrong?" Charlie looked up at him for another long moment before shaking his head and gazing down at his hands.
"Nothing." He said. Blake for once, doesn't push it.
...
Munro elects not to call upon him that evening. Charlie finds that he's started chewing his thumbnail in anticipation. It started innocently enough, hooking the think white band at the top of his nail under his teeth, and then scraping the nail back and foruth a couple of times before allowing it to fall away. Each time Munro comes though, the nail goes back in his mouth.
His stomach churns constantly, unable to make up its mind if it wanted him to be sick or not. It was an almost agonizing feeling, but the breakfast seems to be staying down, and he hopes to keep it that way. Lunch comes and goes. He stands out side for thirty minutes to make it look like he had actually gone and eaten. He leans on the wall and smokes a cigarette, enjoying the feeling of being burnt from inside out.
Night comes and he stays late, working on paperwork. Munro does not call on him. So he leaves.
…
He is not fortunate enough to miss dinner. His mouth aches painfully, despite the painkillers he took at the station. He does his best not to show how much eating was hurting him.
Corned beef was at least relatively soft on his jaw. He carefully eats half of his meal, but after a slightly hurt glance from Mrs Beazley, who had interpreted his not eating as an insult, he ate a bit more. His stomach started churning again, and it took a great deal of strength for him to keep his face neutral. He keeps out of conversation, which is not unusual. So no one questions it as they eat.
Eventually, he helps Mrs Beazley gather up the plates and stack them in the sink, before making his way back upstairs. Dinner seems to be staying down, so he goes right to bed, and tries to sleep the feeling of despair off.
…
He loves the weekend. If he wants to stay in bed until noon then it's unlikely that anyone is going to tell him off. It also, however, gives Blake a chance to monitor his eating for two whole days. The nail biting is only getting worse, with the thin band of white now gone from the tops of all his fingers. Yet he kept biting at the enamel, unable to do anything else with his nervous energy.
He never thought he could be grateful for Monday but seeing Munro again and moving from Blake's almost stiffing overprotectiveness was almost a relief. He was sure that come Monday, however, he was going to crave the weekend again.
…
Monday comes. He manages to sneak out of the house without eating, because his stomach was churning so furiously that he had too stop twice on his walk to the bus stop to make sure that he wasn't sick.
Arriving at the station he takes his seat and resumes the paperwork that he left on Friday, hands shaking with the awful dark feeling that had begin to cloud the air around him and make it hard to breathe. His nails take the brunt of his anxiety, which then, when he physically cannot force any of the nail under his teeth, he transfers to biting at the top layer of skin surrounding his nails. (Excluding the one that was missing, naturally.)
At lunch time, he's considering going for a cigarette, but out of the blue, Blake arrives and sets a sandwhich down on his desk. " You left your lunch behind." He smiles. Charlie offers him a tiny, awkward smile.
" Thanks." He chokes out, as Blake sits opposite him, and produces a second sandwhich.
"I thought we could eat together." he smiles. Charlie opens the baking paper and struggles not to let his treacherous body betray him again. Blake starts to eat with ease, but it takes Charlie a further minute to begin, unable to stomach more then a mouthful every so often.
"I'm worried about you." Blake informs him. Charlie sighs and turns his attention up from his typewriter. Blake was usually pretty good about his whole being a rather poor conversationalist thing, why stop now?
"Why?" He asked, putting on the facade that he was actually just humoring the doctor.
"You're pale, even for you, you haven't been eating, sick often, all you do when you go home is go up to your room, you get home so late...I can see the toll its taking on your body." Blake said, as Charlie forced down yet another mouthful.
"You were the one who got beat up three nights ago." Charlie said, with a little smile. Blake offers a nod.
"I was. But I was worried about you before that. I'll tell you what. Let me look at your fingers, and I'll turn down my worry." Charlie sighed pitifully, but then nodded.
"Alright, fine." He said, allowing Blake to pull him to his feet.
…
It's quiet as Blake slowly wraps each of his freshly abused fingers in gauze. The quiet stretches on and on as he finishes, and allowed Charlie to have his hand back. "Thank you." he smiles, as Charlie pulls the hand close to himself protectively.
"It's fine." He said, after several moments.
"See you tonight then." He said, before clapping Charlie on the shoulder and leading him back to his desk. Charlie sighs, and gives the rest of his sandwhich to Hobart, who seems to appreciate it more then he had been.
…
Munro finally takes mercy on him, and calls on him that evening. He's never felt so anxious before. He stands in front of his desk as Munro contemplates a lighter that he's holding between his fingers. Charlie begins to breathe heavily. "Shirt off." he orders, rather plainly. So Charlie does.
The shirt comes off. He stands facing Munro. He sets the lighter back down, and picked up the same pocket knife from the previous time Charlie was in here. This time, he doesn't speak up or talk back. "Arm out." Munro tells him, and so Charlie does. Munro puts his hand around Charlie's wrist, and sets the knife on the soft skin just below his elbow. Even though he's prepared for it, Charlie is still shocked when the knife cuts though his skin.
Sixteen little cuts, right down his arm, each getting a little deeper, and a little deeper. He's bleeding by the last cut. He want to scream and cry and yell, but all that comes out is one single tear, that graces his left cheek, and dribbles down his face. Munro leans forward, and catches the tear on his finger, examines it, and then uses the same finger to force its way inside Charlie's mouth. Charlie almost retches on the finger, but he doesn't, and Munro removes it from his mouth.
His hand hovers above his sliced up arm, not quite sure what to do. He didn't have to think too hard though. Munro passes him a handkerchief. He covers the slices and then looks up. "You can go now, sergeant." Munro said, waving him away. Charlie hesitates for a moment, before leaving.
He walks home, hoping that the fresh air will help him clear his mind, but it doesn't.
After he arrives home, the first thing he does is go to the upstairs bathroom and be sick. Lunch comes back up and he feels the stickiness on his chin. Then, horror of all horrors, he hears a knock on the door and the concerned "Charlie?" that makes him want to be sick all over again. "Do you need something? " Yeah. He did. A new life, if he's honest. A one way trip to Melbourne. No. Scratch Melbourne. A one way trip to anywhere that's not Ballarat. As per usual, Blake pays no attention to anything he said (He's not sure what he said, it must have been something because Blake responds, even though he doesn't hear the words, just the tone) and opens the door.
He must look pretty damn pathetic, sitting on the floor, tears on his face and saliva sticking furiously to his chin. His stomach churns at the sight of Blake, still bruised and bandaged. Blake lowers himself to the floor next to him and puts an arm around his shoulders, tugging him close. Charlie's head finds its way to Blake's chest, and he uses the back of his hand to wipe half heartedly at his face. Blake puts another arm around him and makes a gently shushing noise as the tears start all over again.
"You should have told me if you were sick." He scolded lightly, but he stops there, apparently sensing that the last thing that Charlie needed right now was too be scolded.
Somehow, being so close to Blake just made the whole situation worse because he suddenly can't help but cry. His chest heaved with sobs that only serve to make him feel even more sick. Blake doesn't appear to know exactly why he's crying but he's good sport about it and holds him close. "I feel like crap." He admitted softly.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because you were already beat up and I didn't want too...You know..." Blake sighed softly and rubbed his shoulder gently.
"Lets get you cleaned up." He murmured, getting to his feet and bringing Charlie with him. They stood in front of the mirror and Charlie dabbed at his chin with his handkerchief.
"What happened?" Blake asked softly, gently indicating to where Charlie had apparently bleed though Munro's handkerchief and onto his police shirt. He looked down at it and then back up to Blake.
"I went with Munro out to a call in the bush about…." He sniffed slightly, trying to buy himself thinking time. "About a robbery. We were poking around in the bush, it was hot, we took our blazers off, I rolled up my sleeves..." He murmured, "And I scrapped it on a tree."
"You should let me have a look at it, it might get infected."
"You don't have too." He mumbled, "It'll be fine." Blake gives him a funny sort of look as Charlie licks his lips slightly and dabbed at his face again. "Really. I can do it myself." He assured Blake. There's a pause while Blake considers this. He keeps his arm around Charlie while they both go down the stairs.
"You've taken the bandages off your fingers." Charlie looks down and realizes that he has. He hadn't even noticed.
He hadn't even noticed. He pulled his hands close and pushed past Blake.
"It's fine." he said "I have things under control." It's painfully obvious that he doesn't, bitterly obvious, even, but he doesn't care. He just wants to go to bed and never wake up again. He just wants to forget about the sixteen little slices, all evenly spaced, running down his forearm.
Blake doesn't chase him, so he does go to bed, but sadly, he does wake up the next morning, but he's not really ready to face the day.
He evades breakfast the next morning by ignoring Blake's calling after him as he slams the door behind him as he walks to the bus stop.
Work is just that. Work. He and Hobart work a robbery, but it all sort of turns to shit when they're called out on a murder. He hasn't eaten anything since yesterday, and he feels faint. He suspects that might also have something to do with Munro putting him out in the sunniest part of the crime scene. But Blake, being Blake, can somehow sense when there's going to be a crisis of some kind because he actually faints right into Blake's waiting arms.
He hadn't even noticed Blake move, he'd been so set on keeping his eyes open and on his feet. He wakes up in Blake's doctor's office with Blake sitting next to him, hands steeped and staring at him with grim eyes.
"Would you like something to drink" Blake asked, in the sort of tone that implied that it was not in fat a choice, but rather a command. Charlie accepts defeat and accepts the cups into shaky hands.
"I want details." Blake said, continuing to stare the defeated Sergeant down. "You didn't cut your arm on a tree, did you?" Charlie's mind races, because he has no choice does he. What can he tell Blake that won't send the man carrening over Munro, who probably has the whole thing set up so that it turns back on him. The water that he just swallowed has started to threaten him and Blake has to see it in his face because one hand reaches out and clasps his hand.
"Try and keep it down." He said, softly. "What is making you so anxious that you can't keep anything down?" He demanded. Charlie's mouth is dry, he can't even come up with any words to respond to him.
"Me."
"You?"
"Yeah." Blake actually looks baffled, which is a tiny bit satisfying, if he's honest.
"Why?" This is probably the most monosyllabic conversation he's ever had not counting smoke breaks with Hobart.
"I don't...I don't know." Blake sighs again and rubs a hand though Charlie's hair.
"Rest up." He advisied. "I'll call Munro about getting you some time of."
"No!" He said, sitting up suddenly.
"No?"
"No, no, I can't take any time off."
"You need it." Blake said, after a moment, "You're falling to pieces, Charlie. If this keeps up, Munro wouldn't hesitate to lock you up."
"He wouldn't." Charlie said, grabbing Blake's hand in both of his. "Doc, please, if you even care about me at all, even a little bit, please. Don't call Munro." Blake stares at him for several moments, before he notices Charlie unwillingly contorting his fingers in anxiety. He nods.
"Fine." He said. Charlie lets out a long sigh and releases Blake's hand. "But I'm going to have to monitor everything you eat and when you're here, everything you do."
"Fine." Charlie agreed. He already gave his body to Munro, giving his life to Blake hardly seemed like such a sacrifice to him. Blake almost looks surprised, but he surpresses it, and presses Charlie back down on the table.
"If you're going back to work tomorrow then you need to sleep." He told Charlie, "I'll wake you for dinner." Charlie obeys, because if there's anything that he's learned over the last week, that's what he's best at.
…
Blake is true to his word, and for the next three days, where Charlie is, he is. Every meal is prepared for him, Blake comes to work with him and if Charlie's not mistaken, Blake's even put working on hold so he can keep any eye on him. Which is ridiculous, he's sure, but at first, it's almost comforting to have him watching over.
Munro doesn't call on him for almost a week, because by now Blake has stopped following him around all the time, only half the time. He wishes he could say the experience brought him closer to the doctor but it really hasn't. If anything, it might have even made the situation worse between them because he can't let Blake know. He can't, no matter how much he wants too. No matter how much he craves it, he can't.
So when Blake leaves, he made his way to Munro's office, prepared for the worst. Sadly, no matter how much he tried to prepared himself, there was nothing he could have done to prevent the events that followed.
He stands still and quiet in front of Munro's desk, hands clutched protectively infront of himself. "I almost punished one of your friends again." Munro informed him, capping his pen, "But since you didn't directly disobey me, I think that I'll let you off with a warning. Under one circumstance." Charlie looks up, eyes wide.
"Hand out." Munro said, and Charlie obeys. He looks over his fingers carefully, before taking his ring finger on his left hand into his own.
He then shows Charlie a pair of garden sheers. He stiffens, unsure of what's about to happen to him. Munro lays his hand flat, picks up a handkerchief from his seemingly never ending supply of them.
"Put this in your mouth." He smiles. Charlie does as asked. Munro claps the scissors around his finger, and smiles darkly at him.
He looks so reptilian that Charlie could think he was a snake. He feels them cut though the skin of the top of his finger. Tears begin to escape his eyes and run down his face. Munro just smiles wider as he stops the slow pressure and puts his whole weight onto the sharp blades. They crunch though muscle and flesh and gristle and bone and Charlie screams into the handkerchief and screams and screams until his voice breaks and he's sweating and crying and sobbing.
Munro seems caught in a trance for a moment, watching him wither in pain. He leant forward and caught one of Charlie's tears on his finger and examined it, before smiling at Charlie. "You're pretty when you cry." He murmurs. Charlie sniffed and tried to pull his hand close. But Munro doesn't allow him too, taking a lighter and burning the wound closed.
Soon the room almost smells like barbecue and Charlie is physically disgusted by it. Munro's lighter begins to travel up his arm and he wants to kick and scream but he doesn't. He can't risk any of his friends like that. Eventually, the pain fades into a dull sort of permanence and he loses it for the second time that month.
…
When he wakes up, Munro is gone. There's a note on the table telling him that he should lock up when he leaves. He stumbles to the bathroom and loses the lunch that Blake had forced him to consume an indeterminable amount of hours ago now. He sits back and examines his finger carefully, trying to come up with a good way to hide it from Blake, but his mind is so addled that he really is unable to come up with anything, and he wonders if maybe, for the first time in his life, if fate will be kind to him.
He walks home, kind of hoping that he gets jumped. Kind of hopes they break his spine. Kind of hopes they kill him. He is pretty lucky, because Blake is on the phone when he gets home. He's able to slide past and go upstairs to bed. He wonders why fate was kind to him tonight. Blake comes to check on him some time later, but he pretends to be asleep and Blake says nothing to wake him up.
…
It takes about four days for the infection to present itself. Red streaks have begun to show up on his hand, the finger is hot to the touch, draining pus and smelling of rot. He takes to wearing gloves, counting himself lucky that it's winter time and he has the ability to do this. Blake, for some reason, doesn't question it. He's pretty grateful for that. He can't wear gloves very day, so he takes a sticking plaster, and sticks it half on half off his finger, two of them, so it was almost like he was wearing a thimble made from pasters. Blake never questions it. But on the third day, he fills the thimble with cotton wool.
Munro doesn't call on him at all, and he's so relieved. Days have begun to mash together, and he's struggling to tell them apart in his memory. He's incorrectly dated three reports so far. Munro's not very impressed by him. He supposes that it would take a lot to impress William Munro. So he's really very shocked, if he's honest.
Lunch time on the fifth day, Hobart sends him outside with a cup of tea, annoyed by his apparent illness slowing him down. That's where Blake finds him, three hours later, on the same bench, holding the same cup, staring past him into the distance. He gently put a hand on Charlie's arm, and then sat next to him. Charlie just sighed softly, but didn't make any move to adjust himself. He just hurt too much, all over. After a moment, he does however fall sideways onto Blake's shoulder. Blake puts an arm around him after a moment, before offering him a cigarette. He takes it.
After a moment, he produces his own lighter from his top pocket, which requires him to act like a functioning human and it takes a genuine effort to move that much. He offers it to the Doctor, who leans forward enough to light his cigarette. Charlie pulls it back, and finds himself drawn to the flame as it burns merrily from its little metal cage. His hand is drawn to it, there's no other way to describe it.
After a long moment, he slams his hand down on the wick, so fast Blake doesn't even have time to stop him.
"Charlie!" The other man yells, before wresting the lighter out of his fingers and tossing it away almost effortlessly. Charlie just screams in pain while he hand sears from the burn. Blake is already pulling him inside the building towards the sink in the mens room.
Charlie says nothing while Blake holds his hand under the stream of water, but after a second, pulls his sleeve away to reveal the burns on his forearm as well. He probably thinks those are self inflicted as well, Charlie realizes, as Blake pulls him into a tight hug. He doesn't fight back, however. He never really fights back with Munro either.
Blake takes him home, and Charlie thinks that it's probably for the best that he does. He's sitting on the medical bed in Blake's office while Blake carefully wraps his hand in bandages that are clean and white. He's so out of it that he doesn't even see Blake take the plaster off his finger and promptly stumble from the room, looking very green. Charlie just kind of stares back at him as he leaves, and then turns to look at the paintings of birds up on the walls as though they could help him.
Blake returns with penicillin and a needle, followed by Mrs Beazley. He has either not been talking, or maybe Charlie just hasn't been listening because it's very suddenly very quiet and neither of them has spoken.
It's determined to be the latter when he tunes in enough to hear Blake repeating his name like a mantra. He glances at him to find the man holding his hand close. "Can you hear me?" He nods. Blake sets his hand down, before pulling him into a tight hug that crushes his ribcage and makes the tears prick at his eyes in sadness.
"What's happened too you?" Blake asked softly, and Charlie knows that he can't very well go around saying 'Oh I gave Munro my body to do as he pleases with and his pleasing happens to involve mutilating myself.' so he just does the next best thing and cries. Blake holds him tightly and doesn't let go, not even after the tears stop.
…
Apparently, Blake has take the initiative to get him some time off work. And keep him locked in his study as well. Lying on the couch, far too out of it to really be in any state to do much else. He also notes that Blake has effectiveley kept Mrs Beazley and Mattie out and away from him. He sleeps frequently, only being awake to the point of functioning when Blake decided it was time to force him to eat.
It's pretty damn miserable, and seems to be never ending.
…
Once he's returned to the point of functioning again, Blake begins to frequent what he's started to call his prison more often, but it still takes him three days to bring the subject up a little more often. He's also started to lose his mind because he's been in this room for so long.
"We need to talk." He said, sitting next to Charlie on the couch. Charlie sighed softly and hooked his arms around his waist in a self comforting hug. "What's going on with you?" He asked. "You told me you hurt yourself, but I don't think that's true." Charlie pulled his arms tighter. Blake gently put a hand on Charlie's cheek and turned his face to look at him. Charlie keeps his eyes firmly down while Blake continues to stare at him.
"I can't." He whispered.
"Why can't you?" Blake asked, softly.
"Because then you'll get hurt." He replied.
"Charlie, I know you're trying to protect us but please. Please let me help you." He said, keeping his eyes firmly on Charlie. Charlie looks back at him with sad eyes now, and then turns his gaze back to his hands. Blake lets out a long sigh and drapes an arm over Charlie's shoulders.
Even if he doesn't reply, Charlie is grateful that he doesn't push it.
…
Charlie was always half convinced that Blake wasn't a human, but rather an ethereal being trapped in a flesh prison, because he has no other explanation for the mans endless kindness and patience with him. He finally gives Charlie the okay to go back to work the following Wednesday.
And then things got very strange because that was about the time that Blake began to follow his every move. At first, it made him uneasy, but after another two days, he found that it kept Munro away from him, and that, too him, was all that was important. (That doesn't stop him from tearing up whenever he walks in, of course. Blake probably saw, but he doesn't care any more.)
The following Thursday, over a week since Munro last called on him, Blake has patients to tend too, and really can't afford to spend any more time away. He seems anxious about leaving Charlie on his own, but knows he can't bubble wrap him forever. Charlie doesn't mind so much, it's really just how things are for him.
Munro, of course, calls on him. He takes the bandages off Charlie's mostly healed hand to examine it carefully. He releases it and sighs softly. "Wasn't injuring yourself in the contract?" He asked. In his infection fueled haze, Charlie had only really been thinking of ways to get Blake's attention, not really the contract.
"It was." He said, softly.
"I'll give you a choice." Munro said, finally. "I can hurt one of your friends. Or I can hurt you."
"You know my answer." Charlie whispered.
"You haven't heard what I'm going to do yet." Munro scoffed. He let out an uneasy breath. "I'm going to remove all the freckles from your neck." Charlie's hand flies to his neck, where veins pumped under the surface, providing his brain with oxygen. He gazed at Munro for several moments, before almost shaking his head.
Then his brain stirs up the image of Blake beat up again and he starts to unbutton his shirt. Munro smiles and sets a fixed blade scalpel on the table. His breathing has started to pick up and the uneasy part of his stomach has turned to nausea again. He sits in the chair, but before Munro can even prick his skin, the door swings open, and reveals Blake and Lawson.
Charlie hadn't even noticed that he'd come back.
"Put down the scalpel." Lawson orders. Munro doesn't.
"This doesn't concern you two." He said. Blake walks in quickly, and puts his coat over Charlie's shoulders. Munro does nothing to stop him until he pulls Charlie's unresisting body to stand.
"Sit down, Davis." He said, and Charlie, more or less out of habit, does.
"Charlie?" Blake asks softly.
"Tell them." Munro demands.
"I gave him permission to do whatever he wants to my body. No questioning. No second chances."
"Or?"
"He'll hurt..." Charlie starts, but he can't finish because he's all choked up and the words and sobs get mingled. "He'll hurt..." He tries again, but Blake seems to get the message because he's pulling him to stand and into his arms.
"Have you got any proof of that?" Lawson asks, almost wolfishly.
"Didn't he just..."
"Charlie's not really in the state of mind to be making formal commitments." Lawson said back, "I'd like to see that stand up I court." He continues. "Superintendent William Munro I'm arresting you-"
Charlie doesn't get to hear the rest of it because Blake has led him from the room he hadn't even realized he was leaving, and sits him down at his desk. He's off making tea before Charlie even has time to say anything to him.
It's not long before Blake is pressing the tea cup into his shaky hands and guiding them to his lips again. "You must think I'm an idiot." He murmured.
"Why would I think that?" Blake asked, softly. Charlie just smiled slightly into the cup in his lap. "I think you're a lot of things, Charlie, but I don't idiot is one of them."
"Yeah?"
"Obviously I think you should have told me before it got to this point, but I know you did what you did because you wanted to protect me."
"You got beat up..."
"Because, I assume, you refused to let him do something too you." Charlie nods, and sighs again.
"I didn't let him cut my arm at first." Blake nods, and wraps an arm around his shoulders again, while Charlie struggles his way though another sip of tea.
"It's okay now." Blake promised. "He will never lay another hand on him as long as he lives." Charlie scoffed again.
"He said I was pretty once."
"Pretty?"
"When I cried."
"Oh." Charlie seems to zone out again, and Blake lets him, keeping a warm arm over his shoulders.
"Well maybe he should have seen you smile." He offers, Charlie replies by moving his head to be tucked under Blake's chin.