A Reasonable Quota of Sins - Lost - Charlie/Eddie
Title: A Reasonable Quota of Sins
Pairing: Charlie/Eddie
Word Count: 2471
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for the unconventional pairings lostfichallenge, and philosophy_20's 'Theory'. Set immediately post-3x03 flashbacks. Thank you to babylon_pride for betaing for me.
Warnings: Implied underage sex.
Summary: The six weeks on the commune left their mark on Eddie Colburn.
It might have only been six weeks spent undercover, but it had felt like longer. Eddie wasn't a liar by nature: when he was a kid, he'd usually confess to any lies within five minutes. Guilt ruled too strongly in his gut.
He cracked open the beer bottle in his hand, producing a hiss of air, and took his first gulp quickly. After the day he'd had, he sorely needed to get drunk out of his mind tonight. He needed to wipe away the memory of John Locke; the faster that he forgot that he was yet another person who had betrayed that man's trust, the better. He'd done what he had to - it wasn't his fault that John had been mixed up in it all.
Maybe it wasn't even his fault that John had been a good enough man to be the one that was targeted. Maybe if he thought about it he'd be able to absolve himself of any blame whatsoever. Eddie really thought he'd like that, 'cause right now that blame was churning inside him like a stomach bug.
His apartment was lifeless and empty; the six weeks he'd been gone from it had left it cold and hostile, not that it was ever exactly a place that he could call home. He'd only moved in a couple of months ago. Boxes were still planted on the ground near the door, waiting to be unpacked. He'd get around to it, eventually.
Usually he liked being alone - he needed his privacy, and after six weeks on a damn commune you'd think he'd need it more than ever - but the rooms seemed to echo around him. Even with all the lights switched on and with his lamps shining brightly, his place felt dusky and dark. He looked down at the home phone he held in his hand, turning it over once as he tried to talk himself out of it. He was a cop now, not just studying to be one. This kind of indulgence… It should have been behind him.
Even as he tried his hardest to talk himself into placing the phone down and going to watch television instead, he knew that wasn't going to work. The struggle was more of an illusion to make himself feel better; if he was struggling with himself over this, then maybe he wasn't completely amoral.
"Can you come over?" he said the second he heard the teenager answering; he always waited, to make sure it wasn't that over-confident brother. No hello, no greeting. Charlie would know who it was. As soon as he heard Charlie eagerly saying he'd be there in ten minutes, he hung up.
He was a good person, he told himself. He really was - this was just a blip.
*
He'd met Charlie when the kid was playing his guitar on the street. Not too bad, but not too good either. Average. At the time he'd been fresh from receiving his marks for the latest exam - they'd been fucking 'average' as well, so he'd been able to relate to a scrappy little teenager who probably wouldn't ever have even an iota of success with that guitar.
He'd taken the guy for a drink, even though he wasn't sure how old he was. Definitely not old enough to legally drink the pint Eddie had bought for him, but Charlie hadn't said anything about it so Eddie had kept his mouth shut too.
When Charlie had kissed him sloppily at the end of the night, mumbling something about how he was going to be a 'fucking rock god, yeah?', they'd also kept quiet about the fuzzy legalities of where the night had led them next.
*
Charlie turned up on his doorstep - ten minutes, just like he'd said - looking as neatly dressed as he always did. Eddie had always thought that teenagers were supposed to be scruffy and untidy, but Charlie wore a shirt and jacket with a scarf draped over his neck like an overgrown necklace. He was the complete opposite of Liam, from what Eddie could remember. He tended to try and avoid him; as much of a bastard as Liam was, Eddie doubted if he'd shrug and sit back as his seventeen-year-old brother was ruthlessly seduced and sodomised by a man eight years older than him.
Eight years. Could be worse, couldn't it?
Could be a lot better, Eddie reminded himself, but he welcomed Charlie in all the same. Maybe 'welcomed' was too strong a word - "What took you so long?"
"Sorry," Charlie said with a shrug that implied he was not. "Liam wanted to know where I was going."
"Yeah?" Eddie asked, letting the door shut as Charlie wandered inside like he owned the place. He had to hide his surprise at hearing that Liam actually gave a damn what Charlie was up to. Eddie's meeting with the man, combined with his ugly memories of his own family, hadn't exactly left him with a shining portrait of him. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, though. "And you told him…?"
Charlie snorted and shrugged. "Made some excuse about schoolwork. He seemed to buy it."
Maybe Charlie was getting to be as good at lying as Eddie was trained to be - or maybe his brother just cared as little as Eddie thought. Either way, it had worked and they had the night to themselves. Eddie sighed with one small nod; it was only when he was away from this screwed-up little stress relief that he realised just how much he needed it.
*
He'd tried to explain his theory to Charlie once, but it hadn't come across too well when he was too intoxicated to form the words correctly. Charlie had only laughed at him and cuffed him around the head, telling him to stop acting like a jerk.
Everyone has a set amount of badness they need to do, he'd tried to explain. Everyone has a set number of bad acts - and he was just trying to get through all of his before he graduated and became a real cop. Made sense, didn't it? That way, when he got his badge, he'd be moral again. He'd be a good man.
"You are a good man, Eddie," Charlie had said with a laugh. "And you're going to be a great policeman too, once you stop whining about it."
That had been months ago - he'd graduated since and been on his first undercover mission. Eddie was starting to wonder just when he would reach his quota of 'bad things' he had to do: whenever he looked at Charlie, with a guilty twinge he had to hope that it wasn't for a long, long time.
*
Charlie raided his fridge, knowing his way around Eddie's kitchen by now. Eddie always thought that Charlie seemed to fit in this apartment better than he did; it was disturbing, to see someone with that level of familiarity with his home after just a few months.
Charlie's scarf and jacket were unwound and taken off and within five minutes they'd parked themselves on Eddie's old couch. The television was playing reruns of old movies and Eddie was over-aware of Charlie where he sat at the other end of the couch - they weren't touching, not yet, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it.
"So-" Charlie said, "Are you going to tell me where you pissed off to for six weeks, or do I have to guess?"
"I was looking for explosives," Eddie answered without looking towards him. Maybe that was supposed to be a secret; it didn't seem like the kind of thing that he was supposed to tell a civilian. There was yet another bad act for his quota, then.
"Cool," Charlie mused. "Did you find any?"
"Nah." He just found a happy community with a hidden secret, and a man with so many daddy issues that it put the rest of them to shame. He'd made friends and subsequently stuck knives in their backs. He probably should have been on the look-out, just in case John found his anger again and decided to come and take his own back. "Nothing interesting." They'd found a whole greenhouse full of marijuana, but nothing remotely like what he'd been searching for and expecting.
"That sucks." Charlie drank from the bottle he'd taken from the fridge and settled his gaze on the film they were half-hearted watching. He grimaced as he seemed to finally notice what they'd been watching for the past half hour. "Hate this pissing film," he grumbled, but that was the only complaint he bothered to make.
*
He'd always known that Charlie was religious in a roundabout way, but it had still been something of a shock to the system when he'd witnessed him walking out of Church on a Sunday. He'd kept his head down and pretended that he was far too busy to notice him - because he didn't think that he'd be able to handle trying to make chit-chat while a priest was hanging over them.
Sometimes he'd wonder how it was that Charlie reconciled what they did with his faith, but when he asked Charlie would just shrug and say, "I reckon God's got bigger things to worry about than who I'm shagging, don't you?"
Eddie had grinned, shrugged, and let it go; seeing as he was profiting from Charlie's God's carelessness, he didn’t think it would be wise to push the point too far.
*
By the time the film was over, Charlie's arm was around Eddie's shoulders and his lips grazed against his necks. Eddie usually wasn't one to sit back and stay passive, but after the past month and a half-
He was tired. He was just tired¸ a bone-weary exhaustion that invaded his very soul. It felt like it had been a long, long time since John had picked him up on the side of the road, hiding from the rain. Felt like he'd been a whole different person - and a whole lot more ruthless too.
His hand brushed slowly through Charlie's hair as he stared up at the ceiling. Emotion knotted in his throat, a painful and twisted kind of frustration. Being a police officer, becoming deputy sheriff right out of school… It should have made him a better person, shouldn't it? He'd thought that would be all it would take - he'd thought that the second he graduated and started doing this for real that he'd be a good man.
Instead, it seemed like it was just leading him further and further down the wrong path.
Charlie's breath on his neck felt fiery and the fingers that impatiently pulled his t-shirt over his head seemed to sear his skin as they touched him. "Slow down," he complained; Charlie was rushing ahead, like he always did.
Those fingers flicked against his ribs in annoyance. "Someone's grumpy today," Charlie grumbled, "And for once it's not me. Are you by any chance in the mood to tell me what's up?"
"Not really."
"So should I just continue?"
Eddie treaded his hand through Charlie's blonde hair again, not able to answer at first - the phrasing, it wasn't right at all. It bothered him, grated against his conscious as though it was mocking him with the fuck-up that he was making of his life. He wanted to do the right thing; he wanted to be the good cop in this scenario.
His thumb moved to trail along the fresh line of Charlie's jaw, stopping to stroke in contemplation at the smooth join were jaw met neck. Should he continue? Definitely not. "I want you to," Eddie answered, words drawn from him like the truth from a thief.
"Good," Charlie said, grinning widely as his hands continued their determined track towards Eddie's jeans. "'cause I'm not entirely sure that my ego could've taken it if you'd tossed me out on the street."
*
"Wish he'd stayed at home, to be honest," Charlie had complained as they'd stayed in the corner and watched Liam surrounded by people in front of him, the centre of attention like he always wanted to be. "This trip- It's supposed to be mine, y'know. School exchange for a few months, but Liam decided he was coming along too 'to look out for me'. Nice thought."
Eddie nodded and didn't contradict him, because even if Charlie sounded resentful he also sounded pleased, cared for, protected. Eddie wasn't in hurry to ruin that illusion by pointing out that Charlie's treasured big brother had probably come over here to try and further the career of that dodgy band they were both in. No point in causing trouble when he didn't need to.
"Nice in theory, not in practice?" he had said instead, shielding himself with a veil of vague manners.
"Yeah," Charlie confirmed. "Something like that."
*
He probably shouldn't do it, but when Charlie breathlessly rested his head on his chest, he didn't scowl and push him away - he didn't tell him to stop being a sap, but allowed his arm to curl around bare shoulders. A warm body next to his was almost too much to handle right then. That familiar knot wound its way into his throat once more so he breathed in the shampooed scent of Charlie's hair to try and block out memories of that damn commune. It had been an easy case, and he'd been training for it - or something like it, anyway - for years. Years. Shouldn’t have affected him at all.
"Eddie?" Charlie whispered. His breath was like a feather over Eddie's skin.
"Yeah?"
"It's the 20th of July in two weeks."
And that should've been the randomest fucking thing that Charlie could have said to him. It should have had as much relevance as the times that Charlie started going on about his damn band or spouting random trivia about Paul McCartney like anyone actually cared, but…
On the 20th of July, there was a plane to good ol' England. Charlie and Liam's tickets had been booked since before they even came out here. In two weeks- that was it. This was over. Charlie was gone.
He stroked his hand along the smooth skin of Charlie's back, tracing his fingers over it in contemplation. Two more weeks in which to completely get over what had happened at the commune and to put any guilt about John Locke behind him - because if he kept on clinging to that when he didn't even have Charlie around to listen to him complaining about it, he was really going to go crazy. Two more weeks to get his little quota of 'bad things' out of the way.
"Guess I'm gonna miss you, Charlie," he whispered in contemplation.
Two more weeks, and he'd finally be a good cop - and a good man too.
Pairing: Charlie/Eddie
Word Count: 2471
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for the unconventional pairings lostfichallenge, and philosophy_20's 'Theory'. Set immediately post-3x03 flashbacks. Thank you to babylon_pride for betaing for me.
Warnings: Implied underage sex.
Summary: The six weeks on the commune left their mark on Eddie Colburn.
It might have only been six weeks spent undercover, but it had felt like longer. Eddie wasn't a liar by nature: when he was a kid, he'd usually confess to any lies within five minutes. Guilt ruled too strongly in his gut.
He cracked open the beer bottle in his hand, producing a hiss of air, and took his first gulp quickly. After the day he'd had, he sorely needed to get drunk out of his mind tonight. He needed to wipe away the memory of John Locke; the faster that he forgot that he was yet another person who had betrayed that man's trust, the better. He'd done what he had to - it wasn't his fault that John had been mixed up in it all.
Maybe it wasn't even his fault that John had been a good enough man to be the one that was targeted. Maybe if he thought about it he'd be able to absolve himself of any blame whatsoever. Eddie really thought he'd like that, 'cause right now that blame was churning inside him like a stomach bug.
His apartment was lifeless and empty; the six weeks he'd been gone from it had left it cold and hostile, not that it was ever exactly a place that he could call home. He'd only moved in a couple of months ago. Boxes were still planted on the ground near the door, waiting to be unpacked. He'd get around to it, eventually.
Usually he liked being alone - he needed his privacy, and after six weeks on a damn commune you'd think he'd need it more than ever - but the rooms seemed to echo around him. Even with all the lights switched on and with his lamps shining brightly, his place felt dusky and dark. He looked down at the home phone he held in his hand, turning it over once as he tried to talk himself out of it. He was a cop now, not just studying to be one. This kind of indulgence… It should have been behind him.
Even as he tried his hardest to talk himself into placing the phone down and going to watch television instead, he knew that wasn't going to work. The struggle was more of an illusion to make himself feel better; if he was struggling with himself over this, then maybe he wasn't completely amoral.
"Can you come over?" he said the second he heard the teenager answering; he always waited, to make sure it wasn't that over-confident brother. No hello, no greeting. Charlie would know who it was. As soon as he heard Charlie eagerly saying he'd be there in ten minutes, he hung up.
He was a good person, he told himself. He really was - this was just a blip.
*
He'd met Charlie when the kid was playing his guitar on the street. Not too bad, but not too good either. Average. At the time he'd been fresh from receiving his marks for the latest exam - they'd been fucking 'average' as well, so he'd been able to relate to a scrappy little teenager who probably wouldn't ever have even an iota of success with that guitar.
He'd taken the guy for a drink, even though he wasn't sure how old he was. Definitely not old enough to legally drink the pint Eddie had bought for him, but Charlie hadn't said anything about it so Eddie had kept his mouth shut too.
When Charlie had kissed him sloppily at the end of the night, mumbling something about how he was going to be a 'fucking rock god, yeah?', they'd also kept quiet about the fuzzy legalities of where the night had led them next.
*
Charlie turned up on his doorstep - ten minutes, just like he'd said - looking as neatly dressed as he always did. Eddie had always thought that teenagers were supposed to be scruffy and untidy, but Charlie wore a shirt and jacket with a scarf draped over his neck like an overgrown necklace. He was the complete opposite of Liam, from what Eddie could remember. He tended to try and avoid him; as much of a bastard as Liam was, Eddie doubted if he'd shrug and sit back as his seventeen-year-old brother was ruthlessly seduced and sodomised by a man eight years older than him.
Eight years. Could be worse, couldn't it?
Could be a lot better, Eddie reminded himself, but he welcomed Charlie in all the same. Maybe 'welcomed' was too strong a word - "What took you so long?"
"Sorry," Charlie said with a shrug that implied he was not. "Liam wanted to know where I was going."
"Yeah?" Eddie asked, letting the door shut as Charlie wandered inside like he owned the place. He had to hide his surprise at hearing that Liam actually gave a damn what Charlie was up to. Eddie's meeting with the man, combined with his ugly memories of his own family, hadn't exactly left him with a shining portrait of him. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, though. "And you told him…?"
Charlie snorted and shrugged. "Made some excuse about schoolwork. He seemed to buy it."
Maybe Charlie was getting to be as good at lying as Eddie was trained to be - or maybe his brother just cared as little as Eddie thought. Either way, it had worked and they had the night to themselves. Eddie sighed with one small nod; it was only when he was away from this screwed-up little stress relief that he realised just how much he needed it.
*
He'd tried to explain his theory to Charlie once, but it hadn't come across too well when he was too intoxicated to form the words correctly. Charlie had only laughed at him and cuffed him around the head, telling him to stop acting like a jerk.
Everyone has a set amount of badness they need to do, he'd tried to explain. Everyone has a set number of bad acts - and he was just trying to get through all of his before he graduated and became a real cop. Made sense, didn't it? That way, when he got his badge, he'd be moral again. He'd be a good man.
"You are a good man, Eddie," Charlie had said with a laugh. "And you're going to be a great policeman too, once you stop whining about it."
That had been months ago - he'd graduated since and been on his first undercover mission. Eddie was starting to wonder just when he would reach his quota of 'bad things' he had to do: whenever he looked at Charlie, with a guilty twinge he had to hope that it wasn't for a long, long time.
*
Charlie raided his fridge, knowing his way around Eddie's kitchen by now. Eddie always thought that Charlie seemed to fit in this apartment better than he did; it was disturbing, to see someone with that level of familiarity with his home after just a few months.
Charlie's scarf and jacket were unwound and taken off and within five minutes they'd parked themselves on Eddie's old couch. The television was playing reruns of old movies and Eddie was over-aware of Charlie where he sat at the other end of the couch - they weren't touching, not yet, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it.
"So-" Charlie said, "Are you going to tell me where you pissed off to for six weeks, or do I have to guess?"
"I was looking for explosives," Eddie answered without looking towards him. Maybe that was supposed to be a secret; it didn't seem like the kind of thing that he was supposed to tell a civilian. There was yet another bad act for his quota, then.
"Cool," Charlie mused. "Did you find any?"
"Nah." He just found a happy community with a hidden secret, and a man with so many daddy issues that it put the rest of them to shame. He'd made friends and subsequently stuck knives in their backs. He probably should have been on the look-out, just in case John found his anger again and decided to come and take his own back. "Nothing interesting." They'd found a whole greenhouse full of marijuana, but nothing remotely like what he'd been searching for and expecting.
"That sucks." Charlie drank from the bottle he'd taken from the fridge and settled his gaze on the film they were half-hearted watching. He grimaced as he seemed to finally notice what they'd been watching for the past half hour. "Hate this pissing film," he grumbled, but that was the only complaint he bothered to make.
*
He'd always known that Charlie was religious in a roundabout way, but it had still been something of a shock to the system when he'd witnessed him walking out of Church on a Sunday. He'd kept his head down and pretended that he was far too busy to notice him - because he didn't think that he'd be able to handle trying to make chit-chat while a priest was hanging over them.
Sometimes he'd wonder how it was that Charlie reconciled what they did with his faith, but when he asked Charlie would just shrug and say, "I reckon God's got bigger things to worry about than who I'm shagging, don't you?"
Eddie had grinned, shrugged, and let it go; seeing as he was profiting from Charlie's God's carelessness, he didn’t think it would be wise to push the point too far.
*
By the time the film was over, Charlie's arm was around Eddie's shoulders and his lips grazed against his necks. Eddie usually wasn't one to sit back and stay passive, but after the past month and a half-
He was tired. He was just tired¸ a bone-weary exhaustion that invaded his very soul. It felt like it had been a long, long time since John had picked him up on the side of the road, hiding from the rain. Felt like he'd been a whole different person - and a whole lot more ruthless too.
His hand brushed slowly through Charlie's hair as he stared up at the ceiling. Emotion knotted in his throat, a painful and twisted kind of frustration. Being a police officer, becoming deputy sheriff right out of school… It should have made him a better person, shouldn't it? He'd thought that would be all it would take - he'd thought that the second he graduated and started doing this for real that he'd be a good man.
Instead, it seemed like it was just leading him further and further down the wrong path.
Charlie's breath on his neck felt fiery and the fingers that impatiently pulled his t-shirt over his head seemed to sear his skin as they touched him. "Slow down," he complained; Charlie was rushing ahead, like he always did.
Those fingers flicked against his ribs in annoyance. "Someone's grumpy today," Charlie grumbled, "And for once it's not me. Are you by any chance in the mood to tell me what's up?"
"Not really."
"So should I just continue?"
Eddie treaded his hand through Charlie's blonde hair again, not able to answer at first - the phrasing, it wasn't right at all. It bothered him, grated against his conscious as though it was mocking him with the fuck-up that he was making of his life. He wanted to do the right thing; he wanted to be the good cop in this scenario.
His thumb moved to trail along the fresh line of Charlie's jaw, stopping to stroke in contemplation at the smooth join were jaw met neck. Should he continue? Definitely not. "I want you to," Eddie answered, words drawn from him like the truth from a thief.
"Good," Charlie said, grinning widely as his hands continued their determined track towards Eddie's jeans. "'cause I'm not entirely sure that my ego could've taken it if you'd tossed me out on the street."
*
"Wish he'd stayed at home, to be honest," Charlie had complained as they'd stayed in the corner and watched Liam surrounded by people in front of him, the centre of attention like he always wanted to be. "This trip- It's supposed to be mine, y'know. School exchange for a few months, but Liam decided he was coming along too 'to look out for me'. Nice thought."
Eddie nodded and didn't contradict him, because even if Charlie sounded resentful he also sounded pleased, cared for, protected. Eddie wasn't in hurry to ruin that illusion by pointing out that Charlie's treasured big brother had probably come over here to try and further the career of that dodgy band they were both in. No point in causing trouble when he didn't need to.
"Nice in theory, not in practice?" he had said instead, shielding himself with a veil of vague manners.
"Yeah," Charlie confirmed. "Something like that."
*
He probably shouldn't do it, but when Charlie breathlessly rested his head on his chest, he didn't scowl and push him away - he didn't tell him to stop being a sap, but allowed his arm to curl around bare shoulders. A warm body next to his was almost too much to handle right then. That familiar knot wound its way into his throat once more so he breathed in the shampooed scent of Charlie's hair to try and block out memories of that damn commune. It had been an easy case, and he'd been training for it - or something like it, anyway - for years. Years. Shouldn’t have affected him at all.
"Eddie?" Charlie whispered. His breath was like a feather over Eddie's skin.
"Yeah?"
"It's the 20th of July in two weeks."
And that should've been the randomest fucking thing that Charlie could have said to him. It should have had as much relevance as the times that Charlie started going on about his damn band or spouting random trivia about Paul McCartney like anyone actually cared, but…
On the 20th of July, there was a plane to good ol' England. Charlie and Liam's tickets had been booked since before they even came out here. In two weeks- that was it. This was over. Charlie was gone.
He stroked his hand along the smooth skin of Charlie's back, tracing his fingers over it in contemplation. Two more weeks in which to completely get over what had happened at the commune and to put any guilt about John Locke behind him - because if he kept on clinging to that when he didn't even have Charlie around to listen to him complaining about it, he was really going to go crazy. Two more weeks to get his little quota of 'bad things' out of the way.
"Guess I'm gonna miss you, Charlie," he whispered in contemplation.
Two more weeks, and he'd finally be a good cop - and a good man too.