Title: A Man of Flesh and Blood
Author: Trekbones
Warning: Colby's thoughts.
Spoilers: Episode of 10/17/08
AN: This is my first Numb3rs fic. I found myself inspired after Friday's episode, soon after actually, and this was what came about. It's more a character piece in that it's Colby's thoughts and stream of consciousness rather than deliberate story with plot and dialogue. All mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I have never owned nor shall ever own Numb3rs.
Colby knew better. The sheer disappointment coursed through his veins. But he wasn't the new guy anymore. And he wasn't undercover. And he was spiraling.
Here was a pretty woman, though a murder suspect, looking at him as desirable. Yeah, she had been a prostitute and was a co-conspirator in extortion. But here was someone looking at him as if he mattered. Yeah, he'd been on Don's team, been forgiven for being undercover and nearly dieing, but here was somebody who wasn't looking at him as an FBI agent and what he could do for the Bureau. This somebody was looking at him at what she could do for him. And even if it was everything morally and ethically wrong, especially since he was a federal agent and she was a suspect, he was still human and had needs. Not just sexual but the needs that everybody had. To be held, to be wanted, to have one's needs recognized as important.
He was being treated as person worthy of respect and love. While he had that from Don and David and even Charlie, maybe even the new girl but who knows with former LAPD, it wasn't really there. Yeah, they cared about him and he cared about them but then he remembered Dwayne and those three lonely years of not trusting anyone. Yeah, he had trusted them to cover his six but the deeper parts of him had to be buried and hidden for all eternity. And after Dwayne, he wasn't surer he could trust anyone anymore. Oh, he hung out with the team and even went out on the occasion date but those tended to end up in one night stands. And Colby wasn't a one night stand kind of guy. He didn't want to be that guy any more. Not anymore. Not after Dwayne.
But he was still alone. And a pretty woman who took interest in him for him, even if it was a means of distracting him from understanding her part in this whole mess, made him ache and burn in ways he hadn't felt in years and wasn't sure he would ever feel again. He was alive. She brought a breath of fresh air to a cold, damp, world that had been his existence for a long time now. Yes, he had been reinstated or at least his mission had become public knowledge. And he had his pick of any assignment in the Bureau. And David and Don and Meagan and Charlie (who had trusted him without doubt) had taken him in and forgiven him. But they hadn't healed the loss of trust or sense of betrayal he had felt, had to bury and cover up to do his job, his duty. That had to remain unacknowledged and forgotten. Well, as forgotten as a bleeding and infected wound can be forgotten.
And here was a person who didn't know about the undercover, about the loss, the betrayal, about lying to his friends. She knew what it was like to have a second chance. And she was offering it to him without strings attached. She didn't care to know about his past, only to know him. And to show him that he still could feel and love and share intimacy with someone without worry about the baggage that others expected you to always carry around. She didn't see him with eyes lensed with the past. She only saw him as the attractive man who stirred something in her and that had her reaching out to him.
And he turned into that reach of her hand and fell. And the falling was glorious. The consequences be damned because here he was being treated as worthy of love and respect and value. That Colby Granger mattered, mattered so much that a woman whom he had barely knew opened her arms, her body, and her bed to him to offer him comfort and remind him of his worth. Not his worth as an agent but his worth as a man and person to be loved.
Colby Granger the man had forgotten who he was. It was always Special Agent Granger, FBI. He had been buried beneath layers of masks and lies that had become permanent, so he thought. And all it took was the touch of a woman to remind him of his core, Colby Granger, the man, who may be a federal agent but wasn't that federal agent all the time. Colby Granger, who could love and hate and get angry and rage and grieve and be betrayed. The man that others had forgotten or refused to acknowledge. That man who becoming a shadow.
Until a woman had reached out and lit the darkness and chased away the shadows.
Yet there were consequences. Yeah, he hadn't thought. Yeah, he had potentially put the case at risk. But he couldn't continue to walk around as a shadow of who he was. So he fell.
And David's disappointment hurt, cut him to the bone. And yet, while painful, didn't kill him. And he wasn't going to tell Don though he really should. He should tell Don, save David the trouble and further disappointment. Not just disappointment but shame. Shame for screwing up so badly and having his friend, no needing his friend to find out. His need to tell someone about the change from being a shadow to a man in pain because he was back in the light was compulsive. He was ashamed for not thinking, about sharing a bed with a potential murder suspect. For disappointing those, even though they may trust him, don't trust him fully.
Maybe David wasn't oblivious to the man, to Colby. But he still worried more about the case. So he wasn't off the hook yet.
He just wanted to be accepted for who he was. That was it. And yet, it all seemed to backfire in his face. Here he was, a man who had to bury that reality carrying the responsibility of being a federal agent on his shoulders plus carrying the responsibility of never screwing up or hiding anything ever again while being an open book with his team, and people expected perfection. He wasn't perfect. And the unrealistic expectation was taking its toll. And so, when somebody, who didn't expect the world of him, offered him a chance, a warm touch, and attended to his deepest needs hidden in secret and deep dark places, he couldn't turn that down. Not without destroying the man further and increasing the burden.
But no one wanted to see that. It was better to hide and passively acknowledge, only after a few beers and late at night hidden in the shadows, that a man hurts, that he has pain that just grows and festers but isn't talked about. Because, well, people have bought into the idea that men shouldn't talk about their feelings and about themselves even if there is the idea bandied about that men who are enlightened talk about their feelings. But it's just lip service to a lie that no one wants to acknowledge: men can only acknowledge that they have feelings and on rare occasions talk about them in quick passing with their partner. But that's it, nothing else.
So the pain festers in the dark, not allowed to be excised. And it poisons, slowly and deadly. So when the opportunity arises to let out even just a drop of that poison, he takes it. Takes that rare opportunity to dull the pain, take away the edge, and live. Not walk as a shadow. To be a man and not the job description.
Colby wanted to scream and shout but mostly he wanted to cry. The pain that had been eased now was overshadowed by shame and disappointment. And the fear that he had lost everything, everything that had mattered to him. While he still had the wounds from being undercover and betrayal of his friends, they were still his friends, and they still mattered to him. To lose them so soon after losing Meagan, after losing Dwayne, would be the loss of life itself. He couldn't lose anything more. Not again.
He was hanging by the raggedy edge and no one was looking his way.