It was raining so hard the sky had turned gray and all the world beyond the windows was a wet blur of green. This was when Harry loved Charlie's house; they felt miles from anywhere, enclosed and alone, the rugged nature surrounding them harsh and wild. No one to interrupt them. No one for miles.

They laid in bed, still sweaty and aching with a fire warming the air as the wind whipped at the side of the house.

"We can stay here forever. Get married and be respectable and have babies."

Charlie smiled into the curve of Harry's neck. "Aren't we respectable now?"

"Less than ten people know we're together."

"A lot more than that suspect we're together."

"Charlie."

"Harry."

Harry rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. He sighed softly and pressed his hand against Charlie's sternum, just at the edge of where the burn was starting to fade. It had healed well.

They were very different men. More than their past or their jobs or their personalities, they were inherently incompatible. But that was what made them work. It was a case of the old adage - opposites attract, and despite all their differences when they came together, they fit. Still, it had made for some interesting arguments over the years.

"You've never wanted to get married before," Charlie said, linking their hands together on his chest. "You've never even been interested in monogamy before. So why now?"

"I'm chained to you already," Harry said. He refused to meet Charlie's eyes. "Why not make it official?"

To Harry's surprise, Charlie laughed. Not a soft little disparaging laugh, but a full, from the belly laugh. "Oh god, Harry. You're hard work sometimes."

"What?"

"You're not chained to me."

"Well, I can't exactly go down to a club and get some little twink to blow me," he said.

"Do you want one? A twink, I mean. I'm sure I can find you one if you do."

"That's not the point."

"No, sorry. The point is you want to marry me all of a sudden."

"Don't mock me."

Charlie shifted on the bed too, angling himself to look into green eyes that were just as expressive as they'd always been. Expressive and alluring. And a complete mystery. He ran his hand from Harry's naked hip up, slowly, covetously, eventually curling it under Harry's arm and around his shoulder, then leaned in to plant a kiss on his mouth.

"If you want that…" Charlie said, "If that's really going to be our life – living here, making a family together, then we have to tell my mum."

"Oh god."

Charlie pressed his lips together to contain his laugh. "I will do anything for you, Harry. Absolutely anything. Even marry you. But those are my conditions."

"She'll hate it."

"She probably already knows."

"No she bloody well doesn't." Harry sulked, tucking his head under Charlie's chin and pressing their chests together.

"When did you get so affectionate?"

"Since I need you to protect me, now," Harry said, leaning back and batting his eyelashes.

"Bullshit. But I'm not complaining. I mean it, though. She deserves to know."

"You can tell her. Would you really do it?"

"There's the difference between me and you, Harry," Charlie said as he shifted positions so he was lying with his head on Harry's chest, his arm thrown over Harry's waist, holding on tight. "You want to marry me now that you feel like all your other options have gone. And all I've ever wanted is to settle down and make you my family."

"Hang on-" Harry said, cutting him off, but Charlie shushed him back into silence.

"We had an arrangement, yeah, but it wasn't what I really wanted."

"This is the wrong time to be rehashing ancient history."

"I'm thirty six, Harry."

"That really is ancient."

"Oi," Charlie laughed. "Less of that, young man."

Harry was rubbing slow circles between Charlie's shoulder blades, his fingers exploring freckles and scars that had been there for years. He knew this skin, its inconsistencies and the way it felt under his hands. Touching each other was so achingly normal that even when they were disagreeing, their bodies searched for the weight of the other.

"Can I ask you something?" Charlie said as the wind caused one of the trees outside to whip against the window.

"Yeah. Of course."

"If you hadn't been hurt, would you still want to get married?"

Harry sighed heavily. "If I hadn't been hurt, I would never have got the opportunity to move in here and live with you. So I don't know."

"But it wasn't at the forefront of your mind."

"No."

"Okay."

"You know what this is to me, Charlie. You know what you are to me. There's no reason why we can't make it official now."

"Yeah, I know what I am to you. And right now I feel like the most awful piece of shit on the planet because you're hurt and hurting and everything is so hard for you, but I'm here on top of the fucking world because I get to have you every single day. All I've wanted for years is for us to be together all the time and I got what I wanted. But for me to get that you had to get hurt.

"And then you ask me to marry you and I've wanted to ask you that for years but you would have just laughed it off or said no, or it would have made things awkward between us, so I didn't. And you probably have no idea how much I want to tell you I love you, all the fucking time but you don't like that either, so I don't."

Charlie shifted on the bed, sitting up so he could look at Harry when he finished what he had to say. "So the next time you ask me to marry you, Harry Potter, you better fucking well mean it."

He leaned down and kissed Harry on the corner of his mouth, then stood and walked to the bathroom, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.

A/N: Do you think I can reach 200 reviews for 20,000 words? Yeah, I don't think so either. But it would be awesome.
I just started a new job this week, which is quite cool, but I'm not sure what my writing time will be like for the next few weeks. Please forgive me if there isn't another update for a little while? Love you all, especially my greeneyedgirly, who reads this shit against her will, just because she loves me too.