F is for Food Fight
Chapter 1 of 5
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters
Author's Note:
If you think you've read this before, you probably have. It's Yet Another Story for the Summer 2006 Alphabet Challenge.
A humorous look at the relationship between the Don and Charlie. Set during the first season and as much influenced by my cats as by the Brothers Eppes. (This actually started out life as two separate stories, F is for Food Fight and its sequel: F is for Finals.)
Author's Warning: NO food, NO drink.
This had been the kind of week that they didn't show on television cop shows. One of their major cases had gone to trial and Don and his team had to be at court all day, ready to testify. It had been mind numbingly tedious.
On the upside, California jurors did not hear testimony on Friday. So, Don had made an executive decision and ordered his team to take a three day weekend, as they were all overdue for time off.
Megan, David and Colby had looked at him as if he'd started spouting one of Charlie's esoteric theories. Then they had fled before he could change his mind.
Don chuckled at the memory of his hard case agents scampering away like scared bunnies. It was Thursday and a three day weekend stretched before him like a par three fairway.
He knew his father was away on a business trip. He also knew that Charlie had to work on Friday. So he did what any red-blooded American sibling would do when faced with a chunk of free time when there was no parental regulation on hand.
He dropped by the house to gloat.
There was no one in the kitchen, which explained why the soup had been allowed to boil over. Fortunately, the pot hadn't been too badly scorched. Don poured what little soup remained into a mug and put the pot into the sink to soak.
He finished the soup as he checked the backyard and the garage. The mug joined the pot in the sink before Don headed upstairs.
Charlie's bedroom was empty. Repeated calls elicited no response. It was late and Don wondered where Charlie could be. On a date? Of course, it wasn't like his baby brother was actually a baby who had a curfew, even if this was a school night.
Don sighed, seeing his chances for entertainment fade. It would be just his luck to get an actual three day weekend and have no one to spend it with. But then he tried the solarium and couldn't open the door.
At first, Don thought that Charlie had deliberately barricaded himself into the solarium.
The mathematician was too old to have accidentally locked himself in. (And frankly, Don still had his suspicions about that incident when Charlie was six. That had been a much too convenient method of getting out of weeding the yard.)
After a few minutes of pushing and swearing under his breath, he got the door open enough to see that the obstruction really was an accident this time. A pile of books had spilled in front of the door. Don pushed past them, and carefully stepped over them, and around the other stacks of books and papers.
Having successfully navigated the labyrinth, Don studied his brother for a few moments. Charlie was walking around the work table and collating paper from four different colored stacks. Don bet himself that they were the final exams that Charlie had put off until the last minute.
His brother wore an orange shirt that looked like a Salvation Army reject, denim cutoffs and an iPod. Don smirked at the sight. He'd taken at least two noise-filled minutes to get into the room and Charlie was so engrossed in his project that he hadn't even noticed. Of course, the iPod might have had something to do with that.
Don waited until Charlie had walked past him for the third time before deciding how to rectify this. His first attempt, knocking on wood, didn't work.
Attempt number two, clearing his throat, also proved futile.
He debated stepping into Charlie's path, but that seemed like a quick route to humiliation. Imagine the expressions on his team's faces when he had to admit he'd been hospitalized because Charlie had run him over… on foot.
The image of Charlie trampling him and not even noticing is what prompted Don to walk up behind his brother and bellow. "YO! CHARLIE!"
Charlie let out a squawk like a stepped on pigeon, whirled, lost his balance and wound up on the floor amidst a fluttering rainbow of papers.
Charlie looked up at Don in wide-eyed panic, until Don started laughing. Then a flashflood of annoyance crossed the younger man's face and he scrambled to his feet, swatting away Don's proffered hand.
"Don't do that!" Charlie snapped, clutching at his chest. He yanked the ear buds out and Don could faintly hear "Yellow Butta Sunshine" before Charlie turned the iPod off.
"What?" Don asked, grinning too much to even attempt an innocent look. "Slam through the front door, tramp around calling your name, stomp up the stairs, pound on the door, cause an avalanche pushing through your mess here and then stand in plain sight as you walk past me five or six times?"
Charlie stopped brushing his jeans off and glared. "Yes," he growled. "I hate it when you sneak up on me like that."
Don laughed again.
Charlie sighed. "I'm glad somebody is in a good mood," he grumped. He looked Don up and down. "How was court?" he asked, proving that he could actually listen and remember what other people said.
"Boring," Don summed it up succinctly. "So, what'cha up to?" Don asked, as if he didn't know. He sat down at the worktable. Then he noticed a plate holding a pastrami sandwich, a dill pickle spear and some potato chips on the other side.
"I'm finishing my final exams," Charlie said with as much dignity as he could muster. He picked up the scattered papers and shuffled them around.
While Charlie's attention was diverted, Don relocated.
When Charlie looked at him again, his pickle was nowhere to be seen.
"You gonna eat all this?" Don asked, gesturing to the plate with half of the sandwich.
"Ummm," Charlie said.
"Thanks," Don as he wolfed down half of the sandwich.
Charlie frowned.
"C'mon, Charlie, I'm starving," Don said, once he swallowed.
Charlie shook his head. "No, no, that's fine. I mean, you can help yourself. I just thought that I'd eaten that…"
"Oh, no problem, Buddy," Don said. He took Charlie at his word and ate the other half of the sandwich. "You're finalizing your finals, eh?"
Charlie rolled his eyes but didn't answer verbally.
"So, why aren't you done yet?"
Charlie raised an eyebrow at him. "There was this case…"
Don held up his hand. "Enough! That was important!"
"I know it was …" Charlie's voice trailed off and he blinked at the plate. It was empty, as Don had thoughtfully polished off the potato chips, as well.
"You hungry?" Don asked curiously.
"Uh, yeah," Charlie said, still staring at the plate. "I can have soup, though. There's some heating on the stove."
"Not any more, you let it boil over."
Charlie swore.
"Don't worry, Buddy, there's some left over lasagna in the fridge from the last time Dad cooked," Don said.
"I cooked that," Charlie said sulkily.
"Reheating something Dad left in the freezer for you doesn't count as cooking, Buddy," Don said. "Be right back."
He trotted downstairs before Charlie could come up with a rejoinder. He rooted through the refrigerator until he found the lasagna. He lifted the lid and estimated there was about a serving and a half left. He sniffed it, decided it was still edible and stuck the whole casserole dish in the microwave.
He helped himself to a Strohs while he was there. When the lasagna was fully irradiated, he carried a tray with two beers and the lasagna to the solarium and looked around for a place to put them.
Charlie was stapling stacks of paper with grim determination.
"Need some help?" Don asked.
Charlie shook his head. "I got it," he said.
Don set the tray on the floor and handed Charlie a beer. Charlie paused in his stapling long enough to chug most of the bottle down, probably without either tasting it or noticing what he was drinking.
Don smirked. Charlie usually nursed one bottle all night; he'd probably feel the effects of this one tomorrow.
Don left Charlie to his stapling and collected an occasional table and returned to the solarium with it. He placed the tray on the table and pulled a chair up as he watched Charlie work. He sipped on his beer, then tasted the lasagna to make sure that it wasn't too old.
After a while, Charlie began straightening the piles up. Then he leafed through them, obviously doing a final check. "What happened to the lasagna?" Charlie asked without looking up.
Don looked into the empty casserole dish. "Sorry, Buddy, it was too old."
"Damn," Charlie said.
"I'll see what's in the cupboard," Don said. He smuggled the lasagna dish out of the solarium and into the sink with the burned pot.
In a normal kitchen, like his own, there would be plenty of pre-made meals, such as frozen dinners or cans of chili. His father, however, was determined not to live like a bachelor, so he insisted on making things fresh.
Don wondered why there was almost nothing else at hand. Clearly somebody had forgotten to go to the store. Not that he was automatically blaming Charlie, mind. But with their father away…
Don munched the last apple from the fruit bowl and studied the strangely pathetic collection that he'd found. He tossed out two bananas and something that may have been a peach at one time.
He found plenty of ingredients, but nothing that could be turned into a meal in under ten minutes. The refrigerator held three eggs, condiments, a few slices of greyish bacon, some wilted lettuce, some rubbery celery stalks and a bottle of milk.
Don opened the milk, grimaced at the horrendous smell and dumped it down the sink. He checked the pantry next and wondered why there weren't any cereal boxes or even instant rice. All he found were flour, sugar, baking soda, a can of tuna, a can of peas, a can of sweetened condensed milk and a box of spaghetti, but no tomato sauce.
He tossed the apple core into the trash and wondered if Charlie would want to break some spaghetti.
"ARGH!" from upstairs.
It certainly sounded as if Chuck could use a ahem break.