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numb3rsflashficTitle: Convergence
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: NC17/Slash
Word Count: 2174
Spoilers: Through 2.08 In Plain Sight.
Summary: Don and Charlie bridge the distance caused by the case.
Notes/Warning: Incest. Tag for 2.08 In Plain Sight.
Written: November 25, 2005
By a suitable rearrangement of terms, a conditionally convergent series may be made to converge to any desired value, or to diverge. ~Riemann Series Theorem, Mathworld
Convergence: 3. The act or fact of coming together ~Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition, 1995
When Don got home his apartment was dark and silent. He’d sent Charlie home to get some sleep, but part of him had hoped that Charlie would come here. It was cases like this that made him need someone to hold on to, but he wondered if those very same difficulties had caused a rift between them that they’d find nearly impossible to bridge.
He hung his jacket up and went to the refrigerator, navigating easily in the dark. He reached for a beer, but then chose a bottle of water. It was too late for the beer, with morning arriving way too soon as it was, and he was already dehydrated from spending too much time at the office and not enough of it eating, drinking or sleeping.
In the living room he turned on a lamp and started when he saw Charlie sitting on the couch, blinking as his eyes acclimated to the sudden light.
“Hey, Charlie, I didn’t think you were here. How come you’re sitting in the dark, buddy?”
“I was thinking. The dark made it easier.”
“You still thinking about the case?” Don asked. If he knew Charlie, he’d be agonizing over it for a long time. Don would once have done the same, but he’d learned the hard way that you had to let it go or it would eat you alive.
“It’s just made me.... You know, I meant what I said, I never meant to imply that you....”
“Don’t, Charlie, I know.” Don sat beside him, their shoulders brushing. He took a drink of the water and held the bottle out to Charlie. “Water?”
Charlie shook his head and waved the bottle away. “When I first started doing this, helping you, I thought it was fun.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I told Megan that it was exciting, seeing how I could apply my knowledge of numbers to help you solve crimes. And I liked the fact that finally there was something we could do together. But I guess I never realized the, the reality of it, until something happened to jar me out of my....”
Don watched Charlie’s hands move; hands that usually emphasized a point now fluttered as if they could help him find the words he was looking for. He wanted to interrupt him, to tell him it was all right, but he knew that Charlie needed to get this off his chest. And maybe Don needed to do the same. Maybe then they could bridge the gap between them.
“...my very limited view. Like when I found that picture, of Libby, or when you got shot. I-I forget sometimes, that there are consequences and real people at the other end of my equations.”
“That’s not exactly true, Charlie,” Don said, and Charlie turned to look at him. “You do know that what you’re doing helps people, it’s just that some cases....” He took a deep breath. “Some cases are harder than others. They shove it in your face instead of letting you keep it all on the periphery so you can do your work.”
“But you weren’t....”
“You don’t know what I was, Charlie,” Don said, a surge of anger going through him again, because how was it that they could be so close, and yet so far away from each other sometimes? “We lost an agent. That’s not easy. And just because I didn’t....” He closed his eyes. “...drop everything to find that girl....”
“Libby.”
“I know that, Charlie. Libby, okay? Doesn’t mean I didn’t care. We each do what we can, and my job was to find her father. The man who killed an agent and was pumping drugs out onto our streets.”
“I understand that, Don.”
“Do you? Do you really, Charlie? Because you could have fooled me.”
“You’re still mad at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but I thought.... I thought that maybe I could clear my head and we could talk.”
Don deflated. “Charlie, I’m not mad at you. I’m not,” he repeated at Charlie’s incredulous expression. “It’s just that...I’ve always got to understand what makes you tick. Dad was on me again last night about pushing you too hard because you didn’t choose this life for yourself. What he doesn’t understand is that you did, Charlie. You may not have known what you were getting into, but I didn’t force you to become a consultant. And no one ever says, Charlie, Don’s doing the fucking best he can.”
Charlie looked like he’d been sucker punched. “I know that, Don. I do. It may not always seem that way, and I know I can get...focused on one thing more than I should, but I do know that you, that you do everything you can. It’s just, I saw that picture and it.... I got distracted.”
“It took you out of the game, Charlie. He could have gotten away, and we might never have found him, and what do you think would have happened to Libby then? Did you ever, just once, stop to consider that if we found him, even before we knew he was Libby’s father, that he might be able to tell us something that could lead us to her?”
Charlie’s eyes went wide. “No, I-I never thought of that.”
Don thought he’d feel better after letting off some steam, but he felt worse, because now Charlie looked even more beaten down. “Hey, come here.”
Don raised his arm and Charlie automatically slid under it, twisting and lifting his legs onto the couch, resting his head on Don’s shoulder.
“I was a liability on this case.”
“You could have been, yes,” Don said, “but you pulled it out in the end, Charlie. You may have struck out the first time up, but you gave us a walk-off home run, huh?” He shook Charlie and kissed the top of his head.
“I did help, right?”
“Yeah, Charlie, you helped a lot. You came through for us, buddy, but you just...you can’t leave me hanging like that again, okay?”
“I did not mean to do that, Don.”
“I know that, Charlie, but I need to know that I can count on you. You have to be in top form, at the top of your game.”
Don felt Charlie’s smile. “Got any more sports analogies for me?”
“No. I’m tired, that’s all I’ve got.”
Charlie raised his head. “Did you eat?”
“No, but I’m too tired to eat. I just want to fall into bed and get twelve hours of sleep. But since that’s not going to happen, I’ll settle for six, and maybe your famous scrambled eggs for breakfast, huh?”
Charlie smiled. “I can do that.” He leaned forward and gave Don a quick kiss. “Hey, Don?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know that, by a suitable rearrangement of terms, a conditionally convergent series may be made to converge to any desired value, or to diverge?”
Don closed his eyes, then opened them again. “What?”
“By a sui—.”
“No, no, no, don’t repeat it, explain it.”
“Do you ever wonder how we ended up here? I mean, after all those years we spent apart, in different worlds....” He looked at Don. “...here we are, working together, and...spending time together outside work.” Charlie cracked his neck, which made Don smile.
“Converge. That means to come together, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what does that...?”
“Riemann Series Theorem.”
“Right. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me that if we’re not careful, our paths could just as easily diverge once again. But we’re not going to let that happen.”
“We’re not?”
“No. This case? I believe was a test.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Yes. What if I’d...? What if he’d gotten away?” When Don didn’t have an answer to that, Charlie continued. “We might not be sitting here right now. We might not even be talking to each other.”
“Wow, you were doing a lot of thinking before I got home, weren’t you?”
“Yes. And I’ve figured out what we need to do.”
“What’s that?” Don asked, almost afraid of the gleam in Charlie’s eyes.
“Stack the deck.”
“Stack the deck?”
“Yes. In our favor, of course.”
“Of course.”
Charlie shifted on the couch so he could reach Don’s neck, and placed a kiss there. “We’re going to make sure that those terms are arranged so that our paths never diverge.” He kissed Don’s neck again.
Don felt the shiver all the way down to his toes. “All right, yeah, that sounds like a plan.”
“And that includes talking.”
“Talking?” Not what he’d had in mind.
“Yes. Actual communication.” Another kiss. “We lucked out this time, and I don’t want something like that to happen again. So we need to talk. And we especially need to listen to each other.” Another kiss, and this time Charlie used a little tongue. “Do you agree?”
Don moaned. “Yes.”
Charlie pulled back and studied him. “Have you even been listening to a word I’ve said?”
“Yes.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow in challenge.
“Convergence,” Don said, wracking his brain for anything else Charlie had said when Charlie didn’t seem impressed. He decided that the best defense was a good offense. “Well, look, Charlie, it’s your fault.”
Both eyebrows went up at that.
“You know better than to kiss my neck if you ever want me to...listen!” he ended triumphantly. “Which we will both be doing from now on.”
Charlie grinned. “You so lucked out with that one.”
“Maybe,” Don hedged. “I’d feel even luckier if we converged on the bedroom.”
Charlie rolled his eyes, but got up off the couch. “You suck, Don.”
“Given the right incentive.”
Charlie laughed as he led the way to the bedroom. “I’ll give you incentive.”
“You usually do,” Don said, ducking the swat aimed at his head.
They both used the bathroom and got ready for bed. When they were both under the covers, they rolled together and Don wrapped Charlie in his arms. The feel of his body, warm and solid, was just what Don needed. Charlie shifted and his cock pushed into Don’s thigh. Don’s cock, still thick from the kisses Charlie’d given him on the couch, jumped.
Don kissed Charlie’s face, slowly moving towards his lips, until Charlie lifted his face and looked at him.
“You’re tired,” he said. “You need to sleep.”
“So do you.” Don ran his hand down Charlie’s side to his hip and around to cup his ass. “But we need this, too.”
Charlie whimpered as Don slipped his fingers between his thighs and tickled the back of his balls. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure,” Don said, and rocked his hips in a search for friction. “Come here.”
Charlie slid on top of him and they both moaned when their cocks brushed as Charlie aligned their groins.
“Yeah, now come here.”
Don curled his fingers around the back of Charlie’s head and pulled him down for a kiss. Don pushed up as Charlie thrust down, moaning into Charlie’s mouth. Their tongues touched, and then Charlie was pushing into Don’s mouth, thrusting in time to his hips.
When they parted for air, he said, “Mmm, yeah, Charlie. God, that feels so good.” He ran his hand up Charlie’s back. “You know, I was hoping you’d be here.”
“Y-you were?”
“Yes. I’m glad you came here.”
Charlie slipped his hands beneath Don’s shoulders and wrapped his fingers around them, using them for leverage as he drove himself against Don. He buried his face in Don’s neck, and his hot breath feathered over Don’s skin.
Don slid both hands down Charlie’s back to his ass, and cupped a cheek in each palm. He squeezed and kneaded, gently spreading them and allowing his fingers to slip between them. He teased along Charlie’s crack, purposely staying away from his hole, knowing it would drive Charlie wild with anticipation.
“Donny, please.”
And Don could never resist Charlie when he sounded so desperate and lost. He brushed his finger over Charlie’s hole, then touched it more firmly before pressing the tip of his finger inside.
Charlie gasped and his body bowed, and then warm, sticky fluid spurted between them as his hips jerked against Don.
Don held Charlie tight and thrust up against him, his cock sliding through Charlie’s release. He arched his neck when he felt Charlie’s tongue, and came when Charlie bit him.
When he’d recovered enough to speak, Don patted Charlie’s ass. “Hey, Charlie? We need to clean up here, buddy.”
Charlie moaned, then slid off Don enough to reach over the side of the bed. He found a pair of boxers or a t-shirt and used it to wipe them off, then tossed it to the floor before slumping back down beside Don.
Don closed his eyes, then opened them. “Hey, Charlie?”
“Mmm?”
“How was that for convergence?”
Don grinned as Charlie groaned and banged his head against Don’s shoulder.
“That was bad. You’re just lucky I love you.”
“Well, duh. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.”
The End
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: NC17/Slash
Word Count: 2174
Spoilers: Through 2.08 In Plain Sight.
Summary: Don and Charlie bridge the distance caused by the case.
Notes/Warning: Incest. Tag for 2.08 In Plain Sight.
Written: November 25, 2005
Convergence: 3. The act or fact of coming together ~Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition, 1995
When Don got home his apartment was dark and silent. He’d sent Charlie home to get some sleep, but part of him had hoped that Charlie would come here. It was cases like this that made him need someone to hold on to, but he wondered if those very same difficulties had caused a rift between them that they’d find nearly impossible to bridge.
He hung his jacket up and went to the refrigerator, navigating easily in the dark. He reached for a beer, but then chose a bottle of water. It was too late for the beer, with morning arriving way too soon as it was, and he was already dehydrated from spending too much time at the office and not enough of it eating, drinking or sleeping.
In the living room he turned on a lamp and started when he saw Charlie sitting on the couch, blinking as his eyes acclimated to the sudden light.
“Hey, Charlie, I didn’t think you were here. How come you’re sitting in the dark, buddy?”
“I was thinking. The dark made it easier.”
“You still thinking about the case?” Don asked. If he knew Charlie, he’d be agonizing over it for a long time. Don would once have done the same, but he’d learned the hard way that you had to let it go or it would eat you alive.
“It’s just made me.... You know, I meant what I said, I never meant to imply that you....”
“Don’t, Charlie, I know.” Don sat beside him, their shoulders brushing. He took a drink of the water and held the bottle out to Charlie. “Water?”
Charlie shook his head and waved the bottle away. “When I first started doing this, helping you, I thought it was fun.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I told Megan that it was exciting, seeing how I could apply my knowledge of numbers to help you solve crimes. And I liked the fact that finally there was something we could do together. But I guess I never realized the, the reality of it, until something happened to jar me out of my....”
Don watched Charlie’s hands move; hands that usually emphasized a point now fluttered as if they could help him find the words he was looking for. He wanted to interrupt him, to tell him it was all right, but he knew that Charlie needed to get this off his chest. And maybe Don needed to do the same. Maybe then they could bridge the gap between them.
“...my very limited view. Like when I found that picture, of Libby, or when you got shot. I-I forget sometimes, that there are consequences and real people at the other end of my equations.”
“That’s not exactly true, Charlie,” Don said, and Charlie turned to look at him. “You do know that what you’re doing helps people, it’s just that some cases....” He took a deep breath. “Some cases are harder than others. They shove it in your face instead of letting you keep it all on the periphery so you can do your work.”
“But you weren’t....”
“You don’t know what I was, Charlie,” Don said, a surge of anger going through him again, because how was it that they could be so close, and yet so far away from each other sometimes? “We lost an agent. That’s not easy. And just because I didn’t....” He closed his eyes. “...drop everything to find that girl....”
“Libby.”
“I know that, Charlie. Libby, okay? Doesn’t mean I didn’t care. We each do what we can, and my job was to find her father. The man who killed an agent and was pumping drugs out onto our streets.”
“I understand that, Don.”
“Do you? Do you really, Charlie? Because you could have fooled me.”
“You’re still mad at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but I thought.... I thought that maybe I could clear my head and we could talk.”
Don deflated. “Charlie, I’m not mad at you. I’m not,” he repeated at Charlie’s incredulous expression. “It’s just that...I’ve always got to understand what makes you tick. Dad was on me again last night about pushing you too hard because you didn’t choose this life for yourself. What he doesn’t understand is that you did, Charlie. You may not have known what you were getting into, but I didn’t force you to become a consultant. And no one ever says, Charlie, Don’s doing the fucking best he can.”
Charlie looked like he’d been sucker punched. “I know that, Don. I do. It may not always seem that way, and I know I can get...focused on one thing more than I should, but I do know that you, that you do everything you can. It’s just, I saw that picture and it.... I got distracted.”
“It took you out of the game, Charlie. He could have gotten away, and we might never have found him, and what do you think would have happened to Libby then? Did you ever, just once, stop to consider that if we found him, even before we knew he was Libby’s father, that he might be able to tell us something that could lead us to her?”
Charlie’s eyes went wide. “No, I-I never thought of that.”
Don thought he’d feel better after letting off some steam, but he felt worse, because now Charlie looked even more beaten down. “Hey, come here.”
Don raised his arm and Charlie automatically slid under it, twisting and lifting his legs onto the couch, resting his head on Don’s shoulder.
“I was a liability on this case.”
“You could have been, yes,” Don said, “but you pulled it out in the end, Charlie. You may have struck out the first time up, but you gave us a walk-off home run, huh?” He shook Charlie and kissed the top of his head.
“I did help, right?”
“Yeah, Charlie, you helped a lot. You came through for us, buddy, but you just...you can’t leave me hanging like that again, okay?”
“I did not mean to do that, Don.”
“I know that, Charlie, but I need to know that I can count on you. You have to be in top form, at the top of your game.”
Don felt Charlie’s smile. “Got any more sports analogies for me?”
“No. I’m tired, that’s all I’ve got.”
Charlie raised his head. “Did you eat?”
“No, but I’m too tired to eat. I just want to fall into bed and get twelve hours of sleep. But since that’s not going to happen, I’ll settle for six, and maybe your famous scrambled eggs for breakfast, huh?”
Charlie smiled. “I can do that.” He leaned forward and gave Don a quick kiss. “Hey, Don?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know that, by a suitable rearrangement of terms, a conditionally convergent series may be made to converge to any desired value, or to diverge?”
Don closed his eyes, then opened them again. “What?”
“By a sui—.”
“No, no, no, don’t repeat it, explain it.”
“Do you ever wonder how we ended up here? I mean, after all those years we spent apart, in different worlds....” He looked at Don. “...here we are, working together, and...spending time together outside work.” Charlie cracked his neck, which made Don smile.
“Converge. That means to come together, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what does that...?”
“Riemann Series Theorem.”
“Right. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me that if we’re not careful, our paths could just as easily diverge once again. But we’re not going to let that happen.”
“We’re not?”
“No. This case? I believe was a test.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Yes. What if I’d...? What if he’d gotten away?” When Don didn’t have an answer to that, Charlie continued. “We might not be sitting here right now. We might not even be talking to each other.”
“Wow, you were doing a lot of thinking before I got home, weren’t you?”
“Yes. And I’ve figured out what we need to do.”
“What’s that?” Don asked, almost afraid of the gleam in Charlie’s eyes.
“Stack the deck.”
“Stack the deck?”
“Yes. In our favor, of course.”
“Of course.”
Charlie shifted on the couch so he could reach Don’s neck, and placed a kiss there. “We’re going to make sure that those terms are arranged so that our paths never diverge.” He kissed Don’s neck again.
Don felt the shiver all the way down to his toes. “All right, yeah, that sounds like a plan.”
“And that includes talking.”
“Talking?” Not what he’d had in mind.
“Yes. Actual communication.” Another kiss. “We lucked out this time, and I don’t want something like that to happen again. So we need to talk. And we especially need to listen to each other.” Another kiss, and this time Charlie used a little tongue. “Do you agree?”
Don moaned. “Yes.”
Charlie pulled back and studied him. “Have you even been listening to a word I’ve said?”
“Yes.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow in challenge.
“Convergence,” Don said, wracking his brain for anything else Charlie had said when Charlie didn’t seem impressed. He decided that the best defense was a good offense. “Well, look, Charlie, it’s your fault.”
Both eyebrows went up at that.
“You know better than to kiss my neck if you ever want me to...listen!” he ended triumphantly. “Which we will both be doing from now on.”
Charlie grinned. “You so lucked out with that one.”
“Maybe,” Don hedged. “I’d feel even luckier if we converged on the bedroom.”
Charlie rolled his eyes, but got up off the couch. “You suck, Don.”
“Given the right incentive.”
Charlie laughed as he led the way to the bedroom. “I’ll give you incentive.”
“You usually do,” Don said, ducking the swat aimed at his head.
They both used the bathroom and got ready for bed. When they were both under the covers, they rolled together and Don wrapped Charlie in his arms. The feel of his body, warm and solid, was just what Don needed. Charlie shifted and his cock pushed into Don’s thigh. Don’s cock, still thick from the kisses Charlie’d given him on the couch, jumped.
Don kissed Charlie’s face, slowly moving towards his lips, until Charlie lifted his face and looked at him.
“You’re tired,” he said. “You need to sleep.”
“So do you.” Don ran his hand down Charlie’s side to his hip and around to cup his ass. “But we need this, too.”
Charlie whimpered as Don slipped his fingers between his thighs and tickled the back of his balls. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure,” Don said, and rocked his hips in a search for friction. “Come here.”
Charlie slid on top of him and they both moaned when their cocks brushed as Charlie aligned their groins.
“Yeah, now come here.”
Don curled his fingers around the back of Charlie’s head and pulled him down for a kiss. Don pushed up as Charlie thrust down, moaning into Charlie’s mouth. Their tongues touched, and then Charlie was pushing into Don’s mouth, thrusting in time to his hips.
When they parted for air, he said, “Mmm, yeah, Charlie. God, that feels so good.” He ran his hand up Charlie’s back. “You know, I was hoping you’d be here.”
“Y-you were?”
“Yes. I’m glad you came here.”
Charlie slipped his hands beneath Don’s shoulders and wrapped his fingers around them, using them for leverage as he drove himself against Don. He buried his face in Don’s neck, and his hot breath feathered over Don’s skin.
Don slid both hands down Charlie’s back to his ass, and cupped a cheek in each palm. He squeezed and kneaded, gently spreading them and allowing his fingers to slip between them. He teased along Charlie’s crack, purposely staying away from his hole, knowing it would drive Charlie wild with anticipation.
“Donny, please.”
And Don could never resist Charlie when he sounded so desperate and lost. He brushed his finger over Charlie’s hole, then touched it more firmly before pressing the tip of his finger inside.
Charlie gasped and his body bowed, and then warm, sticky fluid spurted between them as his hips jerked against Don.
Don held Charlie tight and thrust up against him, his cock sliding through Charlie’s release. He arched his neck when he felt Charlie’s tongue, and came when Charlie bit him.
When he’d recovered enough to speak, Don patted Charlie’s ass. “Hey, Charlie? We need to clean up here, buddy.”
Charlie moaned, then slid off Don enough to reach over the side of the bed. He found a pair of boxers or a t-shirt and used it to wipe them off, then tossed it to the floor before slumping back down beside Don.
Don closed his eyes, then opened them. “Hey, Charlie?”
“Mmm?”
“How was that for convergence?”
Don grinned as Charlie groaned and banged his head against Don’s shoulder.
“That was bad. You’re just lucky I love you.”
“Well, duh. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.”
