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browngirlTitle: 8.64 x 10^4
Fandom: Numb3rs
Rating: NC-17 with warnings.
Pairing: Charlie/Amita, Don/Charlie
Summary: Add up projects, subtract distractions; divide by obligations, multiply by love.
Warnings/Spoilers: Het, slash, incest, non-monogamy. Set somewhere mid-S4.
All Thanks To: / Acknowledgements:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lomedet, whose wonderfulness to me goes beyond titles and descriptions.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me.
6:00:31
...beep, beep, beep...
Two sensations penetrate the thick haze of sleep, dragging Charlie up out of unconsciousness: the alarm's harsh beeping and the sweet scent of Amita's hair. Yawning, he gropes backwards without moving any other part of himself, especially trying not to dislodge his face from the dark silky blanket of her hair.
Unfortunately, he can't reach the alarm no matter how much he twists his shoulder; worse yet, Amita shivers awake with a little "ow," tugging against Charlie's cheek. He groans and rolls to his back as she sits up, taking her hair and skin and warmth away, and the sunlight isn't actually brighter or more malicious than on any other morning this time of year. It just feels like it is.
Charlie can block out the light with an arm draped over his eyes, but the alarm is still beeping, a steady one-one-one pulse drilling into his brain. "Morning, Charlie," Amita mutters, sharply nudging his shoulder. "Ugh, it's too early." She leans over him, brushing warmly against his skin, and mercifully shuts off the alarm. "Come on, Sleeping Handsome, get up." He reaches blindly towards her, and she laughs a little and swats his hand away. "It's your alarm, after all."
"My alarm?" Charlie blinks, lifting his arm enough to uncover one eye. The light's as cruel as before, but Amita is smiling at him and rubbing her cheek. "I distinctly remember when you set it last night."
"I don't have lecture until ten today," she answers, swinging herself over him, her arm sliding under his hand as she steps backwards out of bed. "But yours is still at eight."
She's awake enough to tease him, so Charlie drops his arm back across his face. "Well, Sleeping Handsome needs a kiss."
"Get up, then." Amita's voice recedes into the hallway. "You can have two."
"How about four?" Charlie pushes the covers aside, levering himself up. "Or eight?" By the time he reaches the bathroom she's already in the shower. "Or, you know, we could try for countable infinity."
Amita's laughter echoes over the rushing sound of water as he grabs his toothbrush. "Let's just start with one, and actually show up for our classes."
Charlie makes an acquiescent noise, brushing his teeth as fast as he can. As he rinses he spots an empty conditioner bottle in the trash, so he pulls a new one from under the sink and raps it on the shower door. Amita pushes the door open a little, a wet spiral of hair beside her eye, and with heroic effort Charlie keeps his eyes from tracking down as he grins at her.
She tilts her head, grinning back, and presses her hand over his on the conditioner bottle. "All right," she says, pulling gently, pushing the door open wider, "Aleph-null."
Now he can look at the water flowing down her curves, and reach out to wrap his hand around the smooth swell of her hip. "Aleph-one at least." Stepping over the threshold into the water, her body sleekly wet against his, he kisses her smile, hoping to lose their count.
8:01:41
There's a little rivulet of water running down the nape of Charlie's neck; he didn't dry his hair nearly as well as he should have, and Amita was still busy with her blow-drier when he left. However, he made it to campus with plenty of time to grab coffee and set up before class, and after adding a few final lines to the rightmost diagram he pauses at the board, reviewing his planned lecture and listening to his students arrive.
Fluid dynamics isn't a bad way to start the day, even with Charlie's own personal example trickling under his collar. These students are taking this course because it's part of their chosen field of study or because intellectual curiosity drives them; every metric from the attendance to the test grades is consistently high. Sparking the interest of non-majors is an equally valuable kind of accomplishment; there's nothing quite like watching listless kids slowly rise out of boredom, their eyes brightening as they sit up, as he shows them how fascinating and beautiful math really is. On the other hand, it's downright relaxing to work with students who are already interested, who don't need to be convinced to learn.
Charlie turns, looking at a classroom full of bright, alert faces, and smiles at them, gesturing with his chalk. "Welcome to fluid dynamics," he says, as he does four times a week, and watches them return the smile multiplied. "If everyone's ready, let's begin."
9:23:59
Office hours are not entirely predictable, so Charlie tends to plan them loosely if at all. With midterms still distant but approaching, the chance of a student dropping by is fairly low but non-negligible, so he really should keep himself available; standing in the middle of his office, twirling a piece of chalk between his fingers, Charlie considers today's options.
The pharm data was sent over just a couple days ago, so he probably has some leeway left, but analyzing it would occupy the rest of the morning in a fairly satisfying way. So would evaluating that article on galactic superclusters that Larry pointed him to, saying the math looked a little hinky... When Charlie glances around for the Quarterly Journal of Cosmology he spots the printout of Eva Jacobson's thesis proposal, and his read-through of that really is overdue. It's a little strange that he hasn't heard from her about it, not least considering how quietly assertive Amita was about keeping in touch with him when he was advising her.
That memory brings Amita to mind, her goodbye smile this morning, the tilt of her head, her long hair waving in the blow-dryer's airstream. Charlie smiles reminiscently for a moment before he shakes it off and reaches for the stapled printout. He gives it a preliminary flip-through but the text and notation blur together under his eyes; perhaps reading it off a computer screen will help.
When he opens his laptop his email flashes, but there are only three new items, one reminder about a meeting that probably isn't important anyway and two brief notes from Agent Jackson at the NSA concerning more cryptography. Charlie reads those twice and leans back in his chair, grabbing a model tesseract to fidget with as he thinks it over. It's good work, important work, but he's done it before; also, it would increase the time he spends off campus, and Millie's been on his case recently. Her tart 'Try to be more accessible to your students, Professor Eppes,' echoes through his memory, and this time she might even be right.
Besides, they're a little scary down at the NSA, identical suits and identical frowns. Charlie spins the model in his hands, idly riffing on which heuristic would find the most accurate probability of 'Jackson' being some kind of alias, the relative chances of any their stated names being printed on their highly-classified birth certificates. A shadow flickers at the edge of his vision, something blowing past the window, and Charlie glances around, catching sight of his chalkboards. Maybe he should work on something he could actually publish; several neglected projects flit through his mind, colleagues whose emails he should reply to, ideas he should write down. Maybe Charlie should drop in on Larry after his lecture and bounce a few thoughts off him...
Charlie's phone vibrates in a three-one-one pattern. The FBI. A familiar electricity thrums through him, the tesseract falling beside his laptop as he bounces to his feet and grabs for his phone. "Professor Eppes," he answers, just in case someone he doesn't know is calling, or in case Don is.
"Charlie." It's Don, serious but not grim. "You got a minute?"
"Of course, anytime." Charlie strides across the room, flicking the door shut with his fingertips as he turns to the boards. If anyone really needs him they can knock. "What is it?"
11:48:26
"Charles." Charlie only notices the noise of foot traffic when he hears his name; he turns to see Larry standing in the open doorway. "I take it our regular lunch has been postponed once again for more urgent matters?"
"Larry! I--" Charlie gestures apologetically, nearly poking himself with his chalk. "I'm sorry. Don called me with a new case, and I knew I could find the search radius right then--"
Larry shakes his head, but he doesn't look pissed off. He just looks like, well, Larry. "Well, inspiration waits for no mathematician. If you had needed my assistance, I would already have been summoned." Charlie shrugs helplessly, almost surprised at how much lighter his chest feels when Larry smiles at him. But then, Larry's small smile seems to take in the whole universe as he looks past Charlie to the infinite. "Perhaps I might benefit from a moment of solitude; I could use a little time to hear the echoes of my own thoughts."
"Maybe you'll find an approach to the Higgs in them," Charlie offers hopefully, and Larry focuses on him with mild consternation, as if he'd suddenly materialized from the quantum field. "Uh. Hey, tomorrow? Does that work?"
"As ever, Charles." With a vague agreeable wave Larry turns away, shutting the office door behind him. Charlie takes a chalk-tinged breath and looks up at the board again, just as his phone rings.
1:52:53
Charlie isn't sure what he's waiting for, cross-legged in a conference room chair, staring at his own handwriting on the glass wall. He's done everything he can, and he doesn't know why he hasn't gone back to campus, but he's still here waiting. The team left forty-six minutes ago (and twenty-five seconds for Megan, twenty-three for Colby and David, nineteen for Don), and people passing by keep eyeing him as he sits, occasionally paces, or fidgets with his phone. If he's wrong... after all, he had to start with some assumptions, extrapolating from the testimony of a scared little girl.
A brave little girl, who told them everything they needed to know, whose statement diametrically shifted their assessment of Gleeson's motives. Charlie pictures Lakeisha Morris's serious little face and wishes for a moment he'd gotten a chance to make her smile, maybe with the spaghetti trick. Maybe he's just distracting himself with that thought. He wiggles a little in the chair, isometrically tensing and relaxing his thighs, and settles down to wait.
A familiar pattern of footsteps pounds up out of the general noise, and Charlie's pulse lurches, racing in his ears as he looks up. It's Don, not limping, still in his tactical gear, smiling wearily and seemingly unhurt. Relief a lump in his throat, Charlie swallows hard and manages, "Hey."
"Hey yourself." Don sets a warm hand on his shoulder, and Charlie leans into the squeeze. "You did good work today, Charlie. I didn't think we could possibly track Gleeson down so quickly."
"Thanks." Don smells warm, a little sweaty and dusty, but not like cordite, and he doesn't have that grim, vague expression that would indicate someone got shot. Charlie gulps a deep steadying breath and asks, "so does that mean you'll be done with the paperwork in time for dinner?"
Don nods, his smile brightening into a grin. "You should stay and do half. Trying to write up your math always takes the longest anyway."
"I don't think my clearance extends that far." Charlie unfolds his legs and stands up, telling himself he should really get back to work.
Don lets him go with a fake-disdainful nod and a real smile, eyes narrowed and shining. "Yeah, yeah, you'd better run." Charlie laughs and turns, stepping through the doorway, grinning wider when Don chuckles behind him.
3:27:58
Maybe Charlie should've waited for Megan before he left the FBI, so he could ask her advice on how to turn down the Men in Black without invoking doom. He's staring at a blank email, wiggling his fingers over the keys, when his office door opens. "Charlie?" Amita calls.
"Hey, Amita," Charlie replies, typing slowly, deleting almost instantly.
She wanders over, leaning on his shoulder and kissing his temple. "What're you working on?"
"Figuring out how to send the NSA my regrets." Charlie stretches his fingers so the joints pop. "Without pissing them off."
"Just tell them you have commitments on campus." Amita leans a little closer, draped across his shoulders, and he leans back into her warm weight. "After all, you do. Didn't Millie say you need to be here more?"
Amita thinks Millie walks on water, and when Charlie glares she just grins at him, laughter shimmering in her eyes. "All right, if I can blame my unavailability on my boss..." He types that in, sends the email before he can wuss out, and turns to get his arms around Amita and kiss her properly. "Mm, hi."
"Hi, you," she says, eyes sparkling, but pulls away. "I left my overnight bag over there. Can you take it home with you?"
"Can you make it tonight?" Envisioning a full table for dinner, Charlie looks up at her smile as she leans over him, the dark wavy fall of her hair.
Amita shakes her head. "No, since I need to do some work every so often. I have project proposals to evaluate and lectures to plan."
"Work on them in the morning." Charlie reaches up, slipping his hand into her hair.
It slides smoothly around his fingers as she shakes her head at him again. "I have lecture tomorrow, and a Curriculum Committee meeting, right after your Ph.D Committee meeting. I think Millie had them scheduled back to back to impose a limit on how much you all could pontificate."
"It'll take more than that to rein in Lau and Feldberg," Charlie mutters. "And yes, I remembered."
Amita's grin shines. "Good, since you're the chair." She steps back, out of his reach. "Tomorrow night?"
"What do you want for dinner?" Charlie considers going after her, but he probably should catch up on everything he didn't do while he was at the FBI.
"Anything except steak." Amita grabs her satchel as she goes, moving fast.
"Pick something, or I'll make waffles," Charlie calls as she opens his office door; she looks back smiling, almost turning around, and with a warm burst of understanding he realizes she's running because she'd really rather stay. She waves, and the door falls shut with a hollow little thud.
7:16:93
"I trust my sons can take care of the dinner dishes." Their father stands up, shaking out his cuffs. "Since I made the dinner and all."
"Yes, Dad, and it was delicious," Don recites dutifully.
Charlie's mouth twitches with laughter, but he confines himself to a smirk. "Where are you going?"
"You never remember Book Club, Chuck." Don answers for their Dad, who's too busy sighing dramatically. "Maybe if we assigned it a number."
"Why does everyone think I have a bad memory?" Charlie piles up some dishes and steps towards the kitchen. "I know--"
"A thousand digits of pi and nobody's schedule." Don follows him with another pile. Charlie dumps his into the waiting sinkful of water, scoops up a handful of foam, and spins as he tosses it.
Don ducks and lunges, grinning dangerously, and Charlie laughs, dodging for the door. "Try not to wreck the kitchen!" their father calls from the dining room.
Don blocks Charlie's escape route, corners him against the fridge, and loops an arm around his neck. "After the dishes, how about some hoops? I need to work off this pot roast."
"I should..." For a moment Charlie sees his mental to-do list, but Don's uncomplicated smile and dark hot eyes completely displace any thoughts of work. "Yeah, okay," he says lightly over a deep shudder of heat, pushing a little into Don's bicep across the back of his neck.
9:42:23
"Oh, God, Don, please," Charlie begs, his hands tight on Don's muscular shoulders because if he grabbed Don's head he'd push, his heart thudding against his ribs, his hips twitching with the strain of holding still. He teeters, on the edge of Don's bed and in an impossible transition state, chill and heat flickering over his shower-wet skin, and if Don would just hold his hips down, just push in those teasing fingers, just suck that bit harder, if he'd just... "C'mon, please, I'm gonna die, I'm at apsis, pull me in..."
Don's chuckle tingles around him, his fingers shove in almost roughly, he sucks with sudden force, and Charlie grabs hold every way he can, shuddering over the edge, shaking too hard to even shout as he comes. He dimly notices sliding off the bed, Don catching him one-handed and easing him down; what feels much more important, much more present, is Don swallowing around him, his body clenching around Don's fingers, shocks of pleasure radiating outward from twin centers. Wave interference patterns and celestial orbits and orbital fractals bounce through Charlie's thoughts, meshing and merging and dissipating as he finally feels the floor under his back and the sheet piled up beside him, Don's hot mobile mouth sliding off him, soft kisses on his hip and belly and over his heart.
"Oh," Charlie groans, prying one hand off Don's shoulder to cup the back of his neck. "Come here." He cracks his eyes open to see Don smile, his mouth red and slick, and lunges up against lassitude to kiss him. "Oh, God," he whispers over Don's lips, "I think you killed me."
"Talk a lot for a dead man," Don murmurs and kisses Charlie back, easing his fingers out. Charlie twitches with an aftershock and hangs on, tugging Don down until Don settles his head beside Charlie's, his warm solid weight onto Charlie's body. Charlie breathes and feels Don breathe, drowsy and vibrantly alive, holding on and thinking of nothing.
Too soon, six breaths each, and Don shifts off him again. "There is a perfectly good bed up here, you know."
"'S too far away," Charlie mumbles, tugging just enough to make his point.
Don puffs a laugh over his forehead and pushes himself to his knees, then pulls Charlie up by both arms. "Come on, upsy daisy." Charlie tips into Don's bed and Don follows him, just as warm and solid behind him as he was atop.
"Mmm," is all Charlie can come up with for a last word, his eyelids leaden, his muscles radiating happy soreness. Don pulls the sheet up over them, lays a hand on Charlie's hip and nestles his cheek against Charlie's hair, a translated reflection of how Charlie woke up this morning; drowsing, Charlie considers the secret symmetry of waking up with one person and falling asleep with another. Larry would call him a planet orbiting two stars, if he ever told Larry about this, which he wouldn't. Eventually his dual foci must show up in his movements; secrets are inherently unstable. But the thought has no urgency to it, the eventuality seems purely theoretical right now, vanishingly distant beyond Don dozing tucked to his back. Charlie yawns, slumps a little more firmly against Don, and lets everything else go.
10:33:84
"Charlie?" Don's voice in his ear, Don's warmth on his skin, Don shaking him with increasing force. Shoved out of sleep, Charlie groans, smacks Don's hand off his shoulder and rolls away. "Oh, good, since I wasn't about to carry you."
"What?" Charlie rubs his eyes. Don is sitting up beside him, still appetizingly naked, hair in tufts and one leg slung over the edge of the bed. "What's up?"
"It's ten thirty, Dad'll be home in half an hour, and you need to be in your own bed." Charlie watches through his fingers as Don stands up and drags the sheets away.
"Oh... oh, OK." Without Don or the sheets, it's cool enough to force Charlie to full alertness, and maybe bring up a few goose pimples. He hugs himself, widening his eyes in an attempt to look chilled and pathetic, but Don is looking anywhere but at him, and, yeah, they are home. Charlie swallows over the sinking in his stomach and gets up.
Don's right, he should go, but he can't help lingering in the doorway to watch Don lean over the bed, his particularly firm ass and the muscles shifting in his back as he wrestles the fitted sheet off with what looks like excessive force. Charlie doesn't comment on that, or try to talk Don into coming with him, but he does let himself ask, "you're not going to do laundry naked, are you? It's kind of cold in the garage."
"I'll throw on some clothes in a moment, but I want to get this started." Don pauses in the doorway, looking at Charlie over his armful of bedsheets, and his cheek creases in a little smile. "I'm warm enough." He leans in, and Charlie leans to meet him; the kiss is soft and easy and warming down to his toes, but when Charlie unfolds his arms and reaches, Don moves from beneath his fingertips. "Go on," Don says gruffly, turning away, but his voice is a little choked, and Charlie smiles behind his back.
12:58:62
A door opens, its click and slight squeak drowned by snores from the master bedroom and slow snuffling breathing from the room opposite, that door left hopefully ajar. The footsteps crossing the hall don't even need this soundscreen, so careful they would be inaudible even if anyone else in the house were awake.
The bed does squeak lightly as a second body settles on it, perched on its edge. Charlie lies in the middle, face sunk in his pillow, and even if his dreams could be observed they wouldn't make much sense to the viewer, spanning several dimensions and textured with the math beneath the surface of reality.
Sitting beside Charlie, lightly tracing his outflung arm and the curve of his cheek, threading one hand's fingers into the curls above his ear, Don doesn't need to see his dreams. Watching Charlie sleep, the rise and fall of his back and the rapid shifts beneath his visible eyelid, that's enough.
2:25:64
Charlie is still asleep, peaceful and dreamless, his cheek on Don's shoulderblade, his hand loosely curled over Don's heart. Don lies facedown beside him, unmoving and only dozing; he told himself he would listen for any stirring down the hall, but right now the only sounds he hears are his own pulse and Charlie's soft breathing, no longer muffled by the pillow. When Don finally sleeps his dream will be barely perceptible, all warmth and soft darkness and a steady clear beat.
5:58:33
Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep-beep...
Charlie is trying to find the pattern in the beeping, and he needs to wake up to find patterns. Groping with his mind and his hand, he heaves his head up, blinking blearily. The clear morning light makes annoying sense, but his face in the pillow and his arm draped across the bed feel incongruously empty; he thought he'd felt Don lying beside him, Don's shoulder firm under his head, but maybe that's just a lingering fragment of a dream.
The alarm continues beeping insistently. Charlie groans and thumps his head into the yielding pillow, then looks up again just in time to watch the display click over to 6:00:00 precisely. Time to get up.
Outside Charlie's room, Dad's snores echo down the hallway, because he doesn't have to get up at six in the morning anymore. The bathroom is humid and Don is frowning into the fog-streaked mirror as he shaves, dressed in underwear and socks. He grunts by way of greeting, and Charlie pats his shoulder as he steps into the shower. Just another morning, the residual soreness in Charlie's thighs the only evidence of the night before.
Charlie sleepwalks through showering and shaving and dressing, driving himself onwards with the promise of coffee. At the last moment he remembers to grab a tie for the Ph.D Committee meeting, picking a flash of deep color from the tangle. It turns out to be the burgundy silk Amita gave him, and he knots it carelessly as he runs down the stairs.
Don is standing by the door, keys in hand, but he turns around when he hears Charlie. "Come here a sec?"
It's daylight, it's morning, and Dad is asleep just upstairs. Charlie tilts his head quizzically but goes to Don, who reaches for him without looking. Watching his own hands instead, Don straightens Charlie's lapels and firms up his tie, and Charlie's breath hitches when Don's knuckles brush his throat.
Don finally looks up when he steps back, and his smile's perfectly early-morning ordinary except for his eyes. "See you later, okay?"
"Or maybe earlier." Charlie grins, wider when Don rolls his eyes.
"Or maybe earlier." Don turns and opens the door, and Charlie follows him out into the day.
Fandom: Numb3rs
Rating: NC-17 with warnings.
Pairing: Charlie/Amita, Don/Charlie
Summary: Add up projects, subtract distractions; divide by obligations, multiply by love.
Warnings/Spoilers: Het, slash, incest, non-monogamy. Set somewhere mid-S4.
All Thanks To: / Acknowledgements:
lomedet, whose wonderfulness to me goes beyond titles and descriptions.Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me.
6:00:31
...beep, beep, beep...
Two sensations penetrate the thick haze of sleep, dragging Charlie up out of unconsciousness: the alarm's harsh beeping and the sweet scent of Amita's hair. Yawning, he gropes backwards without moving any other part of himself, especially trying not to dislodge his face from the dark silky blanket of her hair.
Unfortunately, he can't reach the alarm no matter how much he twists his shoulder; worse yet, Amita shivers awake with a little "ow," tugging against Charlie's cheek. He groans and rolls to his back as she sits up, taking her hair and skin and warmth away, and the sunlight isn't actually brighter or more malicious than on any other morning this time of year. It just feels like it is.
Charlie can block out the light with an arm draped over his eyes, but the alarm is still beeping, a steady one-one-one pulse drilling into his brain. "Morning, Charlie," Amita mutters, sharply nudging his shoulder. "Ugh, it's too early." She leans over him, brushing warmly against his skin, and mercifully shuts off the alarm. "Come on, Sleeping Handsome, get up." He reaches blindly towards her, and she laughs a little and swats his hand away. "It's your alarm, after all."
"My alarm?" Charlie blinks, lifting his arm enough to uncover one eye. The light's as cruel as before, but Amita is smiling at him and rubbing her cheek. "I distinctly remember when you set it last night."
"I don't have lecture until ten today," she answers, swinging herself over him, her arm sliding under his hand as she steps backwards out of bed. "But yours is still at eight."
She's awake enough to tease him, so Charlie drops his arm back across his face. "Well, Sleeping Handsome needs a kiss."
"Get up, then." Amita's voice recedes into the hallway. "You can have two."
"How about four?" Charlie pushes the covers aside, levering himself up. "Or eight?" By the time he reaches the bathroom she's already in the shower. "Or, you know, we could try for countable infinity."
Amita's laughter echoes over the rushing sound of water as he grabs his toothbrush. "Let's just start with one, and actually show up for our classes."
Charlie makes an acquiescent noise, brushing his teeth as fast as he can. As he rinses he spots an empty conditioner bottle in the trash, so he pulls a new one from under the sink and raps it on the shower door. Amita pushes the door open a little, a wet spiral of hair beside her eye, and with heroic effort Charlie keeps his eyes from tracking down as he grins at her.
She tilts her head, grinning back, and presses her hand over his on the conditioner bottle. "All right," she says, pulling gently, pushing the door open wider, "Aleph-null."
Now he can look at the water flowing down her curves, and reach out to wrap his hand around the smooth swell of her hip. "Aleph-one at least." Stepping over the threshold into the water, her body sleekly wet against his, he kisses her smile, hoping to lose their count.
8:01:41
There's a little rivulet of water running down the nape of Charlie's neck; he didn't dry his hair nearly as well as he should have, and Amita was still busy with her blow-drier when he left. However, he made it to campus with plenty of time to grab coffee and set up before class, and after adding a few final lines to the rightmost diagram he pauses at the board, reviewing his planned lecture and listening to his students arrive.
Fluid dynamics isn't a bad way to start the day, even with Charlie's own personal example trickling under his collar. These students are taking this course because it's part of their chosen field of study or because intellectual curiosity drives them; every metric from the attendance to the test grades is consistently high. Sparking the interest of non-majors is an equally valuable kind of accomplishment; there's nothing quite like watching listless kids slowly rise out of boredom, their eyes brightening as they sit up, as he shows them how fascinating and beautiful math really is. On the other hand, it's downright relaxing to work with students who are already interested, who don't need to be convinced to learn.
Charlie turns, looking at a classroom full of bright, alert faces, and smiles at them, gesturing with his chalk. "Welcome to fluid dynamics," he says, as he does four times a week, and watches them return the smile multiplied. "If everyone's ready, let's begin."
9:23:59
Office hours are not entirely predictable, so Charlie tends to plan them loosely if at all. With midterms still distant but approaching, the chance of a student dropping by is fairly low but non-negligible, so he really should keep himself available; standing in the middle of his office, twirling a piece of chalk between his fingers, Charlie considers today's options.
The pharm data was sent over just a couple days ago, so he probably has some leeway left, but analyzing it would occupy the rest of the morning in a fairly satisfying way. So would evaluating that article on galactic superclusters that Larry pointed him to, saying the math looked a little hinky... When Charlie glances around for the Quarterly Journal of Cosmology he spots the printout of Eva Jacobson's thesis proposal, and his read-through of that really is overdue. It's a little strange that he hasn't heard from her about it, not least considering how quietly assertive Amita was about keeping in touch with him when he was advising her.
That memory brings Amita to mind, her goodbye smile this morning, the tilt of her head, her long hair waving in the blow-dryer's airstream. Charlie smiles reminiscently for a moment before he shakes it off and reaches for the stapled printout. He gives it a preliminary flip-through but the text and notation blur together under his eyes; perhaps reading it off a computer screen will help.
When he opens his laptop his email flashes, but there are only three new items, one reminder about a meeting that probably isn't important anyway and two brief notes from Agent Jackson at the NSA concerning more cryptography. Charlie reads those twice and leans back in his chair, grabbing a model tesseract to fidget with as he thinks it over. It's good work, important work, but he's done it before; also, it would increase the time he spends off campus, and Millie's been on his case recently. Her tart 'Try to be more accessible to your students, Professor Eppes,' echoes through his memory, and this time she might even be right.
Besides, they're a little scary down at the NSA, identical suits and identical frowns. Charlie spins the model in his hands, idly riffing on which heuristic would find the most accurate probability of 'Jackson' being some kind of alias, the relative chances of any their stated names being printed on their highly-classified birth certificates. A shadow flickers at the edge of his vision, something blowing past the window, and Charlie glances around, catching sight of his chalkboards. Maybe he should work on something he could actually publish; several neglected projects flit through his mind, colleagues whose emails he should reply to, ideas he should write down. Maybe Charlie should drop in on Larry after his lecture and bounce a few thoughts off him...
Charlie's phone vibrates in a three-one-one pattern. The FBI. A familiar electricity thrums through him, the tesseract falling beside his laptop as he bounces to his feet and grabs for his phone. "Professor Eppes," he answers, just in case someone he doesn't know is calling, or in case Don is.
"Charlie." It's Don, serious but not grim. "You got a minute?"
"Of course, anytime." Charlie strides across the room, flicking the door shut with his fingertips as he turns to the boards. If anyone really needs him they can knock. "What is it?"
11:48:26
"Charles." Charlie only notices the noise of foot traffic when he hears his name; he turns to see Larry standing in the open doorway. "I take it our regular lunch has been postponed once again for more urgent matters?"
"Larry! I--" Charlie gestures apologetically, nearly poking himself with his chalk. "I'm sorry. Don called me with a new case, and I knew I could find the search radius right then--"
Larry shakes his head, but he doesn't look pissed off. He just looks like, well, Larry. "Well, inspiration waits for no mathematician. If you had needed my assistance, I would already have been summoned." Charlie shrugs helplessly, almost surprised at how much lighter his chest feels when Larry smiles at him. But then, Larry's small smile seems to take in the whole universe as he looks past Charlie to the infinite. "Perhaps I might benefit from a moment of solitude; I could use a little time to hear the echoes of my own thoughts."
"Maybe you'll find an approach to the Higgs in them," Charlie offers hopefully, and Larry focuses on him with mild consternation, as if he'd suddenly materialized from the quantum field. "Uh. Hey, tomorrow? Does that work?"
"As ever, Charles." With a vague agreeable wave Larry turns away, shutting the office door behind him. Charlie takes a chalk-tinged breath and looks up at the board again, just as his phone rings.
1:52:53
Charlie isn't sure what he's waiting for, cross-legged in a conference room chair, staring at his own handwriting on the glass wall. He's done everything he can, and he doesn't know why he hasn't gone back to campus, but he's still here waiting. The team left forty-six minutes ago (and twenty-five seconds for Megan, twenty-three for Colby and David, nineteen for Don), and people passing by keep eyeing him as he sits, occasionally paces, or fidgets with his phone. If he's wrong... after all, he had to start with some assumptions, extrapolating from the testimony of a scared little girl.
A brave little girl, who told them everything they needed to know, whose statement diametrically shifted their assessment of Gleeson's motives. Charlie pictures Lakeisha Morris's serious little face and wishes for a moment he'd gotten a chance to make her smile, maybe with the spaghetti trick. Maybe he's just distracting himself with that thought. He wiggles a little in the chair, isometrically tensing and relaxing his thighs, and settles down to wait.
A familiar pattern of footsteps pounds up out of the general noise, and Charlie's pulse lurches, racing in his ears as he looks up. It's Don, not limping, still in his tactical gear, smiling wearily and seemingly unhurt. Relief a lump in his throat, Charlie swallows hard and manages, "Hey."
"Hey yourself." Don sets a warm hand on his shoulder, and Charlie leans into the squeeze. "You did good work today, Charlie. I didn't think we could possibly track Gleeson down so quickly."
"Thanks." Don smells warm, a little sweaty and dusty, but not like cordite, and he doesn't have that grim, vague expression that would indicate someone got shot. Charlie gulps a deep steadying breath and asks, "so does that mean you'll be done with the paperwork in time for dinner?"
Don nods, his smile brightening into a grin. "You should stay and do half. Trying to write up your math always takes the longest anyway."
"I don't think my clearance extends that far." Charlie unfolds his legs and stands up, telling himself he should really get back to work.
Don lets him go with a fake-disdainful nod and a real smile, eyes narrowed and shining. "Yeah, yeah, you'd better run." Charlie laughs and turns, stepping through the doorway, grinning wider when Don chuckles behind him.
3:27:58
Maybe Charlie should've waited for Megan before he left the FBI, so he could ask her advice on how to turn down the Men in Black without invoking doom. He's staring at a blank email, wiggling his fingers over the keys, when his office door opens. "Charlie?" Amita calls.
"Hey, Amita," Charlie replies, typing slowly, deleting almost instantly.
She wanders over, leaning on his shoulder and kissing his temple. "What're you working on?"
"Figuring out how to send the NSA my regrets." Charlie stretches his fingers so the joints pop. "Without pissing them off."
"Just tell them you have commitments on campus." Amita leans a little closer, draped across his shoulders, and he leans back into her warm weight. "After all, you do. Didn't Millie say you need to be here more?"
Amita thinks Millie walks on water, and when Charlie glares she just grins at him, laughter shimmering in her eyes. "All right, if I can blame my unavailability on my boss..." He types that in, sends the email before he can wuss out, and turns to get his arms around Amita and kiss her properly. "Mm, hi."
"Hi, you," she says, eyes sparkling, but pulls away. "I left my overnight bag over there. Can you take it home with you?"
"Can you make it tonight?" Envisioning a full table for dinner, Charlie looks up at her smile as she leans over him, the dark wavy fall of her hair.
Amita shakes her head. "No, since I need to do some work every so often. I have project proposals to evaluate and lectures to plan."
"Work on them in the morning." Charlie reaches up, slipping his hand into her hair.
It slides smoothly around his fingers as she shakes her head at him again. "I have lecture tomorrow, and a Curriculum Committee meeting, right after your Ph.D Committee meeting. I think Millie had them scheduled back to back to impose a limit on how much you all could pontificate."
"It'll take more than that to rein in Lau and Feldberg," Charlie mutters. "And yes, I remembered."
Amita's grin shines. "Good, since you're the chair." She steps back, out of his reach. "Tomorrow night?"
"What do you want for dinner?" Charlie considers going after her, but he probably should catch up on everything he didn't do while he was at the FBI.
"Anything except steak." Amita grabs her satchel as she goes, moving fast.
"Pick something, or I'll make waffles," Charlie calls as she opens his office door; she looks back smiling, almost turning around, and with a warm burst of understanding he realizes she's running because she'd really rather stay. She waves, and the door falls shut with a hollow little thud.
7:16:93
"I trust my sons can take care of the dinner dishes." Their father stands up, shaking out his cuffs. "Since I made the dinner and all."
"Yes, Dad, and it was delicious," Don recites dutifully.
Charlie's mouth twitches with laughter, but he confines himself to a smirk. "Where are you going?"
"You never remember Book Club, Chuck." Don answers for their Dad, who's too busy sighing dramatically. "Maybe if we assigned it a number."
"Why does everyone think I have a bad memory?" Charlie piles up some dishes and steps towards the kitchen. "I know--"
"A thousand digits of pi and nobody's schedule." Don follows him with another pile. Charlie dumps his into the waiting sinkful of water, scoops up a handful of foam, and spins as he tosses it.
Don ducks and lunges, grinning dangerously, and Charlie laughs, dodging for the door. "Try not to wreck the kitchen!" their father calls from the dining room.
Don blocks Charlie's escape route, corners him against the fridge, and loops an arm around his neck. "After the dishes, how about some hoops? I need to work off this pot roast."
"I should..." For a moment Charlie sees his mental to-do list, but Don's uncomplicated smile and dark hot eyes completely displace any thoughts of work. "Yeah, okay," he says lightly over a deep shudder of heat, pushing a little into Don's bicep across the back of his neck.
9:42:23
"Oh, God, Don, please," Charlie begs, his hands tight on Don's muscular shoulders because if he grabbed Don's head he'd push, his heart thudding against his ribs, his hips twitching with the strain of holding still. He teeters, on the edge of Don's bed and in an impossible transition state, chill and heat flickering over his shower-wet skin, and if Don would just hold his hips down, just push in those teasing fingers, just suck that bit harder, if he'd just... "C'mon, please, I'm gonna die, I'm at apsis, pull me in..."
Don's chuckle tingles around him, his fingers shove in almost roughly, he sucks with sudden force, and Charlie grabs hold every way he can, shuddering over the edge, shaking too hard to even shout as he comes. He dimly notices sliding off the bed, Don catching him one-handed and easing him down; what feels much more important, much more present, is Don swallowing around him, his body clenching around Don's fingers, shocks of pleasure radiating outward from twin centers. Wave interference patterns and celestial orbits and orbital fractals bounce through Charlie's thoughts, meshing and merging and dissipating as he finally feels the floor under his back and the sheet piled up beside him, Don's hot mobile mouth sliding off him, soft kisses on his hip and belly and over his heart.
"Oh," Charlie groans, prying one hand off Don's shoulder to cup the back of his neck. "Come here." He cracks his eyes open to see Don smile, his mouth red and slick, and lunges up against lassitude to kiss him. "Oh, God," he whispers over Don's lips, "I think you killed me."
"Talk a lot for a dead man," Don murmurs and kisses Charlie back, easing his fingers out. Charlie twitches with an aftershock and hangs on, tugging Don down until Don settles his head beside Charlie's, his warm solid weight onto Charlie's body. Charlie breathes and feels Don breathe, drowsy and vibrantly alive, holding on and thinking of nothing.
Too soon, six breaths each, and Don shifts off him again. "There is a perfectly good bed up here, you know."
"'S too far away," Charlie mumbles, tugging just enough to make his point.
Don puffs a laugh over his forehead and pushes himself to his knees, then pulls Charlie up by both arms. "Come on, upsy daisy." Charlie tips into Don's bed and Don follows him, just as warm and solid behind him as he was atop.
"Mmm," is all Charlie can come up with for a last word, his eyelids leaden, his muscles radiating happy soreness. Don pulls the sheet up over them, lays a hand on Charlie's hip and nestles his cheek against Charlie's hair, a translated reflection of how Charlie woke up this morning; drowsing, Charlie considers the secret symmetry of waking up with one person and falling asleep with another. Larry would call him a planet orbiting two stars, if he ever told Larry about this, which he wouldn't. Eventually his dual foci must show up in his movements; secrets are inherently unstable. But the thought has no urgency to it, the eventuality seems purely theoretical right now, vanishingly distant beyond Don dozing tucked to his back. Charlie yawns, slumps a little more firmly against Don, and lets everything else go.
10:33:84
"Charlie?" Don's voice in his ear, Don's warmth on his skin, Don shaking him with increasing force. Shoved out of sleep, Charlie groans, smacks Don's hand off his shoulder and rolls away. "Oh, good, since I wasn't about to carry you."
"What?" Charlie rubs his eyes. Don is sitting up beside him, still appetizingly naked, hair in tufts and one leg slung over the edge of the bed. "What's up?"
"It's ten thirty, Dad'll be home in half an hour, and you need to be in your own bed." Charlie watches through his fingers as Don stands up and drags the sheets away.
"Oh... oh, OK." Without Don or the sheets, it's cool enough to force Charlie to full alertness, and maybe bring up a few goose pimples. He hugs himself, widening his eyes in an attempt to look chilled and pathetic, but Don is looking anywhere but at him, and, yeah, they are home. Charlie swallows over the sinking in his stomach and gets up.
Don's right, he should go, but he can't help lingering in the doorway to watch Don lean over the bed, his particularly firm ass and the muscles shifting in his back as he wrestles the fitted sheet off with what looks like excessive force. Charlie doesn't comment on that, or try to talk Don into coming with him, but he does let himself ask, "you're not going to do laundry naked, are you? It's kind of cold in the garage."
"I'll throw on some clothes in a moment, but I want to get this started." Don pauses in the doorway, looking at Charlie over his armful of bedsheets, and his cheek creases in a little smile. "I'm warm enough." He leans in, and Charlie leans to meet him; the kiss is soft and easy and warming down to his toes, but when Charlie unfolds his arms and reaches, Don moves from beneath his fingertips. "Go on," Don says gruffly, turning away, but his voice is a little choked, and Charlie smiles behind his back.
12:58:62
A door opens, its click and slight squeak drowned by snores from the master bedroom and slow snuffling breathing from the room opposite, that door left hopefully ajar. The footsteps crossing the hall don't even need this soundscreen, so careful they would be inaudible even if anyone else in the house were awake.
The bed does squeak lightly as a second body settles on it, perched on its edge. Charlie lies in the middle, face sunk in his pillow, and even if his dreams could be observed they wouldn't make much sense to the viewer, spanning several dimensions and textured with the math beneath the surface of reality.
Sitting beside Charlie, lightly tracing his outflung arm and the curve of his cheek, threading one hand's fingers into the curls above his ear, Don doesn't need to see his dreams. Watching Charlie sleep, the rise and fall of his back and the rapid shifts beneath his visible eyelid, that's enough.
2:25:64
Charlie is still asleep, peaceful and dreamless, his cheek on Don's shoulderblade, his hand loosely curled over Don's heart. Don lies facedown beside him, unmoving and only dozing; he told himself he would listen for any stirring down the hall, but right now the only sounds he hears are his own pulse and Charlie's soft breathing, no longer muffled by the pillow. When Don finally sleeps his dream will be barely perceptible, all warmth and soft darkness and a steady clear beat.
5:58:33
Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep-beep...
Charlie is trying to find the pattern in the beeping, and he needs to wake up to find patterns. Groping with his mind and his hand, he heaves his head up, blinking blearily. The clear morning light makes annoying sense, but his face in the pillow and his arm draped across the bed feel incongruously empty; he thought he'd felt Don lying beside him, Don's shoulder firm under his head, but maybe that's just a lingering fragment of a dream.
The alarm continues beeping insistently. Charlie groans and thumps his head into the yielding pillow, then looks up again just in time to watch the display click over to 6:00:00 precisely. Time to get up.
Outside Charlie's room, Dad's snores echo down the hallway, because he doesn't have to get up at six in the morning anymore. The bathroom is humid and Don is frowning into the fog-streaked mirror as he shaves, dressed in underwear and socks. He grunts by way of greeting, and Charlie pats his shoulder as he steps into the shower. Just another morning, the residual soreness in Charlie's thighs the only evidence of the night before.
Charlie sleepwalks through showering and shaving and dressing, driving himself onwards with the promise of coffee. At the last moment he remembers to grab a tie for the Ph.D Committee meeting, picking a flash of deep color from the tangle. It turns out to be the burgundy silk Amita gave him, and he knots it carelessly as he runs down the stairs.
Don is standing by the door, keys in hand, but he turns around when he hears Charlie. "Come here a sec?"
It's daylight, it's morning, and Dad is asleep just upstairs. Charlie tilts his head quizzically but goes to Don, who reaches for him without looking. Watching his own hands instead, Don straightens Charlie's lapels and firms up his tie, and Charlie's breath hitches when Don's knuckles brush his throat.
Don finally looks up when he steps back, and his smile's perfectly early-morning ordinary except for his eyes. "See you later, okay?"
"Or maybe earlier." Charlie grins, wider when Don rolls his eyes.
"Or maybe earlier." Don turns and opens the door, and Charlie follows him out into the day.
