He wasn't sure at what particular point in time the shadowy figure that he used to entertain all his fantasies had acquired a face. He wasn't sure what it was that made it decide to take on the face of his brother. Perhaps it was stress. Perhaps it was the lonely life a Curse Breaker led, made only lonelier by the distrust in the brought on by the ever-divisive, ongoing battle against He Who Must Not Be Named.
Whatever it was, it had seemed to have taken on a life of its own. When his fantasies began to come out of the safe confines of his tiny bedroom in the shabby studio flat he rented from Gringotts and followed him to his parents' house, where he was spending more and more time lately, he tried to explain it off as stress. "We're at war," he'd tell himself. "It does strange things to one's mind. Lowers inhibitions. The fact that you might die any minute makes you think things you normally would never consider."
It wasn't, however, so easy for Bill Weasley to justify to himself needing to linger in the bedroom that he and Charlie shared when they would stay at The Burrow, and to watch Charlie dress in the morning. He could of course explain it to others as finding a hole in his sock and needing to change it, or feeling a little under the weather, or wanting to brush his hair, but he knew what it was, and he couldn't ignore his conscience.
"Subtle. Be subtle," he told himself. He had managed to convince his conscience to allow him this little vice; it wasn't hurting anyone as long as they didn't know. He just had to make sure that nobody indeed knew, especially Charlie.
Like most things in the world lately, that ended up falling apart as well. Working with dragons for so long had given Charlie an uncanny sixth sense, and one day when Bill was apparently having a particularly bad day with holes in his socks, Charlie closed the door to their attic room, locked it, and turned on Bill. He didn't need to say a word--Bill knew from the look in Charlie’s eyes that the game was up.
"I'm sorry, Charlie," Bill stammered, sinking onto the bed. He stared at his hands, twisting fingers together nervously, until roughened, scarred hands closed over them.
"Talk to me.”
Bill had talked. He had promised himself upon fully throwing himself into the war effort that he would live for the day, treating each as though he would not see the next. That meant telling Charlie everything he wanted to know.
Charlie had taken it surprisingly well, which for Charlie meant not punching a wall or throwing things. In fact, his reaction had been uncharacteristically subdued, and downstairs at breakfast it was as though nothing had happened. In the following days Charlie changed as usual in the mornings, and Bill still watched as usual, and Bill began to wonder if the confrontation had taken place at all.
The day Charlie cornered Bill behind the back shed, gazed into his eyes with a heat that Bill was not accustomed to seeing there and pressed his stocky body into Bill's slender frame with obvious need, gave Bill all the reassurance he needed that it had indeed happened. They had held the gaze for several tortuous moments, before Charlie seemed to lose his resolve, and he let Bill go. Bill did not pursue him--it seemed Charlie was forming his own ideas of what he wanted, and he wouldn’t interfere. So he watched and waited, as though contemplating the secret workings of a particularly tricky curse.
Bill knew Charlie well, and his patience was rewarded quickly. Charlie was as hot-tempered as the dragons he tended, and that night, as sleep was about to overcome him, Bill felt a weight on his bed. He didn't have to turn over or open his eyes to know who it was, and what he wanted. Their lips met in a slightly awkward yet fervent kiss before Charlie had even fully settled on the bed, and neither got much sleep that night as they explored and tested every story they'd heard about in the back rooms of pubs or in overheard whispers at the Preserve.
What those little snippets of forbidden knowledge didn't tell them, they secretly sought out where they could during the ensuing days, until they figured out how to fully satisfy the fire of need that they had carelessly stoked to such dangerous proportions. Neither cared any more; when everything boiled down to good versus evil, surely what they were doing became a miniscule sin in the grand scheme of things. Even if it wasn't, Bill figured, was it not nobler to be persecuted for loving than for hating, like the Death Eaters?
The battles grew fiercer, the danger greater. It seemed there was no way out; the war would never end. The only escape Bill and Charlie could find was with each other. Battered and bruised bodies came together again and again in sweat-slick desperation, almost painful in its intensity. It seemed to Bill that all there was anymore in the world was fighting, and pain, and fear and Charlie. His family, his job, and his friends were all tied up in the former three, and all that was good in his life rested in the latter. Charlie was all he could cling to any more, the only thing that felt comfortable and right any more, despite how wrong everyone else would say it was if they knew.
And they would know. The family was growing suspicious, and others were starting to talk. Bill knew it, and where he would have cared before about his reputation, Charlie's career, and their family's well-being; but after seeing four friends killed with Avada Kedavra that day, he found he didn't care. He'd make a mess of his life and Charlie's too, and he'd soak up every ounce of pleasure he could squeeze out of it. It would be the most beautiful mess anyone would ever see, and Bill relished the thought as he lay tangled with Charlie, his brother’s fingers laced through his tangled hair. You-Know-Who could no longer ruin their lives; if anyone was going to do it, they would, and on their own terms: a burning blurred mess of uncontrolled emotions and overwhelming sensations that neither fully understood and neither wanted to. There was no time for such luxuries any more.