The house isn't quite filled with people; it's pleasantly full, and friendly, everyone knows everyone else. The party was casual, just a come-as-you-were affair, a simple celebration before the word got out to everyone else.

Charlie had spent the first hour or more by Teja's side, letting everyone get acquainted with him, smiling at the impressed and somewhat shocked looks they both got when they kissed like any other couple would.

But now, he was sitting between two of his friends, old friends that had known him for years, one who'd worked with him, giving him sly looks and a smile that could only be as flirtatious as its owner. Karena was such a tease, to everyone. And Charlie, not for the first time in his life, flirted right back, enjoying the loose attitude where nobody expected a thing but to be happy.

Charlie keeps his arms around Teja's waist, brushing his lips against the conveniently presented shoulder and throat.

"There's a box in the closet that has a long tie in it. I'll use that...it's soft and won't chafe." Yet. That, if tonight goes well, might be later. "But before we start anything you need to learn a little."

The viewscreen has been an interesting experience for Moon, and Charlie both. She enjoys talking to it, and he's enjoying--immensely--listening to her laugh when it responds.

So they're curled up together on the couch in the main room, while Mons and Mare are still asleep at the foot of the bed, on a pile of soft blankets laid down there for them.

"You know, this is nice," he says, idly stroking her hair. "I haven't simply sat and enjoyed time with someone for a while."

The apartment hasn't had that much removed; he did take the precaution of removing some of the more questionable items from the main room, and putting them out of sight.

Because he had the distinct notion that the rest of the tarot might not be entirely thrilled with Moon discovering the various uses of sling chairs, right this moment. And if he was being honest he'd rather she learn that from someone else.

The furniture was comfortable, if a little more omni-purposed than what was at the brownstone across the island. And it was about as secure as an apartment could get, with civilian security. She would be safe here, for however long she decided to stay.

The room shows that it hasn't been slept in in a while. The bed is made and all the lights are off. Charlie's actually fairly content to keep it that way, too...he can see in the dark, enough to see Teja.

"Come with me," he says, turning around once they're both past the door to lock it.

He rode hard, and fast, pushing the bike. Fuck it all.
The slate will soon be clean
He didn't care that he was pushing a hundred twenty miles an hour, and that it was beginning to rain. That he could very easily tip the bike over on a slick spot and likely kill himself.
I'll erase the memories
It didn't matter at all, right now.
I'll start again with somebody new
He couldn't believe Teja had said that....that he didn't know him at all. After the few months they'd been together, he would have thought it might come differently, maybe less of a shock. He'd been foolish to suspend belief for that long, and honestly trust that it would last.
Was it all wasted, all that love?
Very, very foolish.
I hang my head and I advertise
He kept pushing it, paying attention to the road only cursorily, as he was alone on it. At three in the morning he wasn't surprised at that. He'd have been more so had he run into anyone else. Charlie didn't notice at first when the scenery changed to the familiar woods out back of Milliways.
A soul for sale or rent
He ground to a stop before too far, laying his head down heavily on the pivot of the front end. This was just too much. He didn't want to be here, he wanted to be as far away as possible, to put as much distance between him and that godforsaken door as was allowable.
I have no heart, I'm cold inside
And now the bloody place had brought him back? He wasn't simply being tortured enough by the knowledge that his lover—the only person he'd ever let himself fall in love with—didn't want him, or love him, or even know who he was?
I have no real intent
And people wondered why he was so damn cynical.
Save me, save me, save me
He rode slower to get clear of the woods, and the packed dirt the road had turned into, stopping some fifty yards from the bar itself. He didn't want to go in. To face that whole mess again would be cutting it too close. And hell, wasn't he allowed one day of at least disbelief before he went back to life?
I can't face this life alone
He'd kept his LC license. It was still up to standards, as was he. He could do both that and the therapy practice, and be quite content at fitting back into his old life. That was simply all there was to it, if this part of the universe wanted to screw with that, he could just turn around and leave it, and not come back.
Save me, save me, save me!
The motor purred as he turned the bike around, kicking into gear and peeling out away from the bar. He didn't care who heard, or came out to object. People's opinions had never mattered to him before this place, they sure as hell wouldn't after it.
Don't let me face my life alone...
The only hitch was that the road brought him back. Well wasn't that just shit. He killed the engine, pushing the kickstand out and climbing off, pulling off the helmet as well. Just what the hell else could go wrong, after this?

The room is large, but sparsely furnished in whites, blues and splashes of green. "This is pretty much it," he says, falling into a sling chair and just ending the pretense of actually giving a fuck.

"It's in the wall unit. I...brought it with me. From New York. I don't know why."

He sat bolt upright in bed like someone woken by a noise a few seconds too late to identify it. Charlie sighed when he realized there was no one there, that it was just another dream. Those things were going to be the death of him. Feeling the drug pulse into his blood, hitting him like a lead brick swung by a chemi-head hopped on Zeus.

He ran his hands through messy hair, snagging on a few tangles at the back of his head, as he rolled out of bed. Might as well get something to drink. He did sort of hope the door wasn't going to surprise him again by moving; he got the feeling that no matter how many people in the bar liked him, they wouldn't be thrilled to see him stark naked and sleep-tousled.

He shrugged on a pair of black silk pajama bottoms, just in case, and ordered lights on twenty percent, padding down the hardwood floor on bare feet. The tiny square envelope on the floor a few inches from the front door surprised him, but he could recognize it easily. A disc. Well, curiosity hadn't killed this cat, yet... Charlie picked it up, looking over the unmarked manila-colored package as he reached for the whiskey bottle in the top cabinet.

The neck of that clinked against the rim of the old-fashioned glass, ice cracking at the temperature change, as he poured it, taking it and the disc with him to the living room. He swiveled it into the wall unit, picking up the remote as he went to situate himself into a sling chair to watch what it was. The teenager—he's young, looks barely old enough to be considered legal—stares straight back at his reflection through messy hair that's fallen over his eyes; the part that's not being grasped in a too-tight grip at his nape. He can't help but to make a painfully terrified noise every time he's entered roughly, the slap of skin on his own sending a tremor through his skinny frame.

His eyes are young, terrified, wide as saucers as he resists the urge to cry, clenching his teeth against both that and the debilitating drugs. “Please... please, let me go!” his voice is thin like the rest of him, wavering on the edge of cracking. He keeps trying to push up with his hands, in an instinctual attempt to get away from the burning, resounded pain, and slips on the sheets, hands slick with sweat.

The man behind him—the quite unwanted partner for this—just hauls him up by his hair, hissing audibly in his ear as the boy flinches from it, trying to turn his face away unsuccessfully.
-----

This time it's quieter. There are only low moans from the boy, whose hands have been cuffed behind his back, and he laid on top of them, legs parted like white feathers where each thin ankle is held by a bigger hand, keeping them from coming together like his knees do. When he starts to struggle more coherently, bucking against the penetration, he just gets a pressure syringe, held in one meaty hand, jabbed into his side with a cry.

It hurts like hell to have that first rush course through him, turning him into nothing more than a writhing, pitiful mass of limbs, caught between his head protesting and his body wanting everything. He bites his lip hard enough to make it bleed, trying to stifle the sounds.
-----

The third time, it's mostly silent. He's out, passed out cold and can't feel anything. He will later; he'll feel every rip and delicate tear inside him, stinging like icy water when he moves. He he's just a puppet now, a marionette without strings to keep him upright, or stable when his hips are grabbed hard enough to bruise, and yanked back hard.

His hair spills over his face, and the sheets, drifting like a blanket of ink-colored corkscrews every time his body jerks involuntarily. He's too drugged to be coming around anytime soon, and too hurt to want to; by now, his arms and waist, hips and neck have all been marked with irritated red patches where hands have been grasping and squeezing harder then they should. All down one side there are tiny blood trickles, little filaments from where the pressure syringe has been jabbed in.

There's already blood and semen between the boy's legs, spreading out to stain the sheets a mottled crimson, and it shows little sign of stopping any time soon. His shoulders are bent at awkward angles, where his arms have shifted, despite being chained behind him and twisted behind his back. His torso is tilted to one side, clenched hands still tangled in the sheets where his legs kicked them into a mess, trying to get loose.

He only barely opens his eyes, a deep grey that show obvious pain, and fear before the visual blurs out and nothing else comes back on.
He just stares.

Charlie sighed at the fourth time he was put on hold on the 'link call, idly watching the irritatingly pastel colors bleed into one another on the screen, and the tinny recorded flute music play through the speakers on a forty second loop.

He hated being on hold.

There was a beep, alerting him to a second call coming in, and he switched over to it while he waited for the hold to end. "Yes?"

The voice on the other end of the call was both familiar and not; he'd heard it before, but it carried no meaning to him. "I need to make an appointment with you, I just need to meet--"

"I'm not available anymore, you'll have to find someone else to occupy your time." His fingers moved to hover for a second over the disconnect button, before the voice spoke again after a second's hesitation, as if he were recovering from being interrupted. "I know you."

"I'm unsurprised, quite a few people know me, and I expect none of them to have kept my name a complete secret," Charlie returned, more just irritated than anything else. It irked him to not have people listen. "As I've said innumerable times now, you'll have to stop calling me before I file a restraining order against you. And I will, let me disillusion you."

But since words were obviously not going to work, and he had the name and address of whoever this was, he had another option. Charlie cut the call off before the voice on the other end could answer again, hanging up the other one as well. He could talk to Louise later. And it was late; too late to go knocking on someone's door he didn't know.

Maybe in the morning he'd go find them, and see what was wrong with the concept of no, that this someone seemingly couldn't understand.

“I've told you once. I'm out of the profession, I'm sorry. I can give you a referral to someone else...”

“Yet again, no. If you'd like, I can...”

“Quit calling me before I file a restraining order.”

Charlie's growing tired, increasingly, of the same guy that keeps calling him. It's on his personal number; he can only guess how someone got that, since he's unlisted except for his now-disconnected business line. But it's irritating that he keeps getting the same request, from the same number. When the 'link beeps at him in the middle of the bloody night, it had better be because someone's either dead or fast on their way, when it's from a number he doesn't know.

He does have an advantage to finding the person connected to it, though. Reverse directory. While it's a little time-consuming, and a little inconvenient to go having to look for one, they are extraordinarily useful in situations like these. Sure enough, he plugs in the number, and the general area, and it spits out a completely unfamiliar name, and address.

Obedient little sucker, he thinks with a smile that is a mix of satisfied and sarcastic.

Now, the only thing to do is pick a time and go find him.