Title: A Story Told In Numbers
Author: Prentice
Rating: PG-13; FRM (Fan Rated Mature)
Fandom: Numb3rs
Pairing: Don/Charlie
Category: Slash, Established Relationship
Feedback: Is always cherished and appreciated.
Disclaimer: The names of all characters contained here-in are the property of CBS and its creators. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are being used here without permission. No profit was made and no harm was done.
Summary: It's a story told in numbers, all over Don's skin.
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A Story Told In Numbers
by Prentice
It's the quiet moments that affect Don the most. It's taken him months, years even, to realize that one simple fact. It's taken his younger brother Charlie to make him realize that one simple fact.
Before now, he had always believed that it was the chaotic moments, the moments when bullets were flying, bodies were falling and victims were screaming, were what influenced him the most. He believed that, in the moments where all time seemed to stop and he was forced to see the horrors of the world up close and personal, it was changing him into a different person; a better person. A person who could do his job and do it well, with little or no mistakes; a person who could look into the face of a killer and not be cowed by the bloodlust and hate; a person that didn't need anyone to tell him he was right because he knew it already, deep down where nothing and no one could reach it.
But, he was wrong. Incredibly wrong. Infinitely wrong. Impossibly wrong.
It wasn't those moments that made him into whom he was and who he needed to be. It was moments like now, here with Charlie, his younger, sweeter, unbearably avant-garde brother, that made him into the man that saves lives; the man that can make the hard decisions and not look back to question if he'd done the right thing. It was moments with Charlie that made him feel young, strong, and so very alive. It was moments with Charlie that made him feel peaceful in a way that he's never known before.
It was moments like now, with Charlie sitting astride him, inner thighs rubbing against the outside of his legs as he moves and turns, fingers smoothing and pressing the fine tipped pen against Don's skin as he writes nonsensical numbers all over his brother, that make Don want
to sing, to cry, to thank whoever it is that's been looking out for him for him all these years for sending him a gift like Charlie. Every single second, every single detail – from the way that Charlie has the pen cap between his teeth, chewing it in a habit that's partly nerves and partly concentration to the way that Don's hands are on his brother's hips, slowly rocking him back and forth or moving up to flutter softly against his curls – that make his heart pound and his insides feel as though they're going to melt.
It's his brother's nervous tics, the ones that can keep him enthralled for hours on end; the ones that he finds so mundane, so everyday, so fascinating to the point of obsession that make the quiet moments the ones that touch him the most. That stay with him the most, always.
It's Charlie, who's so simple and uncomplicated unlike everyone else that Don knows that makes the moments so meaningful. That's only one of the many reasons why he loves his younger brother so much, so very much. It's Charlie and Charlie alone, who makes the quiet moments, the moments where Don can just be, seem perfect; seem like nothing and everything, all at once.
It's Charlie, who's writing a story told in numbers on his skin, that makes Don know that without him, the quiet moments would mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. But, not this time because unlike the months and years it took him to realize how much the quiet moments mean to him; it won't take nearly as long to realize how much his Charlie means to him because tomorrow, he'll wake up and go to work with the fading ink lines of an equation on his shoulder, his stomach, his wrist and never want to wash them off again.
THE END