History of a Failure
Fandom : Numb3rs
Pairing : Don/Colby
Rating : PG-13
Genre : Angst
Words : 4300
Disclaimer : I don't own any of the characters.
Situation : Follows my french ficlet "Frère d'armes", which takes place right after "The Mole" (3x04). In this short ficlet, Don goes at Colby's place to see how he's dealing with Dwayne's betrayal and ends up taking care of a desperate, drunken Colby. At some point Colby begs for comfort sex but Don refuses and instead puts him at sleep. However, he doesn't refuse when Colby asks him not to leave him alone and the ficlet ends on Don staying in Colby's bedroom for the night.
A/N : Thanks to my awesome beta rosengirl - who isn't responsible for any remaining mistakes. I'm usually more into Eppecest, but Colby deserves love, so I'm going to give him some (kinda...).
Thanks also to Marky for pointing me my grammar/spelling mistakes, which are now fixed.
History of a Failure
0.
Colby woke up to an empty bed and the expected hell that was his headache. Not to think at all would probably have been his best option but seeing that Don wasn't here anymore brought him lots of questions. Questions that needed answers. Questions like 'How much does he hate me now?' or 'Am I going to be fired or just moved out of the team?' or 'Is there any hope to make my life right again?'.
He finally gave up the hope of falling asleep again any time soon and got up. He stepped in some comfortable pajamas and exited his bedroom.
There was something on his kitchen table – a white bag from a drugstore. He opened it only to find some aspirin-like drugs and a note.
"I looked into your stuff but didn't find drugs ; bought some in case you have none at all. I'll put you on sick leave today.
Try to get some rest, I'll pass by this evening if we haven't had an heavy case.
Don."
Colby sighed in relief. His life was going to be right again. Dwayne's betrayal was going to hurt for a while, but he trusted Don to make it right.
---
As promised, Don came back in the evening.
This time, when Colby pleaded him with the trusting look, he sure wasn't drunk.
This time, Don didn't answer, didn't say no ; he just leaned in and kissed him.
And Don probably felt that it was a huge thing for Colby to trust someone after Dwayne because he didn't fuck him.
He made love to him.
1.
There had been no 'morning after'. Not once. Not since they started the thing.
Colby didn't know what a sleeping Don looked like ; never had a chance to see him waking up. There were no morning shower, no light-hearted breakfast, no common ride to the office.
There was just a cold side on the bed, a used towel on the bathroom. Nothing left behind, no clothes or keys or whatever people bring with them when they go at someone else's on a regular basis.
For Colby, the only sign of Don's previous presence was the emptiness.
---
The first times, Don would let a note to Colby, explaining that he had things to take care of. At first, Colby really believed that Don had stuff to do that early. He wanted to believe it. But, as far as his desire went, he couldn't lie to himself forever. And, eventually, Don stopped leaving messages.
He would just wake up before Colby, somewhere in the night, get himself ready and leave without looking back.
Colby soon learnt to fake sleep whenever he woke up before Don. That was easier. No talk, no confrontation, no risk to lose the few things he had.
And there was the whole 'working together' issue. He couldn't jeopardize their relationship when they worked on fields that dangerous ; when the tiniest moment of inattention can cost a man's life – a man you actually deeply care about – you do your best to avoid it.
For these reasons, Colby never argued. He – who used to be very open with his lovers – never told Don what he thought about their situation. Not once.
He endured it, took every joy he could and tried to forget the hurt of the morning emptiness. Tried to live on the moment, enjoy the bittersweet complicity at work and enjoy the evenings without second thoughts.
If Don couldn't let go of his demons, then Colby was ready to accept them – as long as he had Don.
---
He didn't really realize how lonely he became.
Not really.
2.
There were special days, though. Days where Colby had the feeling that this fucked up situation actually made sense. Days where it wasn't about sex anymore.
It was usually the hard cases that brought these days. In the safety of Colby's apartment, they would finally allow themselves to let go and reach for the other.
What they had on these moments wasn't sex, it was connection. A true bond : one of understanding, of shared grief. Two survivors holding tight on each other.
---
Colby shot a thirteen-year-old.
A deadly shot, right in the head. He was looking into the kid's eyes when he did it.
It wasn't like those gunfires where one can't possibly know at what one's shooting. There was no gunfire actually ; just Colby, the kid, a bomb and an hostage. A deadly combination.
Colby tried to talk the kid into releasing the hostage during almost half an hour. He used all his resources, without success. The boy was too far gone, following his brother's criminal path.
Even when he activated the bomb – leaving five minutes for Colby to save their lives – Colby tried to make all this mess right without harming anyone.
But the boy wanted to have a look at death before his own end, and when he pointed his gun at the hostage's head with a smile, Colby didn't have a choice anymore.
He saved the hostage, disarmed the bomb.
He didn't manage to save the part of him that died with the kid.
---
What happened next is a confused mix of sensorial impressions in Colby's memory.
Sudden noises – the rest of the team finally arriving.
Brown – Don's eyes searching for his. Don asking him if he's alright before driving him home.
Red on his hand – a trail of blood on the wall and Don trying to make him stop hitting.
Tension – Don kissing him hard, easing their trousers to their thighs and turning his back to Colby.
Hurt – in Don's voice, but it only lasts a few seconds and then Colby can't hear anything at all.
Cold – the table he's pinning Don into. Frantic, erratic thrusts until the painful release.
Blindness – the tears falling on his cheeks and Don's soothing words.
3.
Once, Don slept by his side through the night.
It was one of these evenings where they were too exhausted to get physical and ended up holding each other on the couch, watching some old good movie. With Don's head on his lap - slowly falling asleep from the light strokes in his hair - Colby would let himself surround by the peace and the simple happiness of it. In evenings like that, he allowed himself to nurse some hopes.
And in the morning, when his alarm clock rang, he thought that God finally filled his hopes because he wasn't alone.
Don was in his bed, looking surprised and a bit lost. He took his breakfast with Colby and even if he acted more like a close friend than a lover, he was here and Colby was kind of blinded by that fact.
When Don left to have time to pick fresh clothes at his apartment, Colby kissed him goodbye. It just seemed the right thing to do : no big words, just a tiny kiss. That was nothing, really, just a quick lips-lock without sexual tension.
On his way to work, a shop caught Colby's attention. He parked his car with a sweet smile. Few minutes later, he left the shop with a smile even sweeter.
That day had been awfully long – minutes slower than hours. The little piece in his pocket almost burnt him from anticipation.
He stayed awake late that evening. Waiting.
But Don never showed up. Not this day, neither the following.
He didn't come by during two weeks.
And Colby threw the additional set of keys away – mortified.
4.
He didn't know about Don's other lovers.
He was assuming that when the guy wasn't at his place, he was at his brother's or at his own's. It never occurred to him that he could see someone else. He believed that, as weird as their situation was, what they had truly meant something for Don – even if he handled things his very own way.
So when Charlie innocently dropped this comment about Robin Brooks, there was shock. Disbelief. Which soon turned into anger at himself for being so naive.
Don never made promises. Don never told him he had feelings. Don never spent the whole night with him.
Don did nothing but come, have good sex and leave. Him being gentle or caring on occasions did not change that.
Now, Colby figured what they were. Fuck buddies. Friends with benefits. There weren't supposed to be any feelings between them.
The realization left him both lost and terribly lonely.
5.
He wanted to understand. He wanted to understand why Don would fuck Robin Brooks instead of him on some nights. He didn't have a right to blame Don, but maybe if he could just understand then it would ease the pain.
So he went to a bar, in search of a good looking female one-night-stand. He probably would have judged himself pathetic, if he was able to think coherently. But he didn't – because he wasn't – and when he went into the bar the only thing he had in mind was that, in the morning, he'd finally get his lover.
The evening didn't end up like he had planned, but he didn't complain when he entered a motel room with a black-haired somewhat Don-looking guy.
He took the man from behind because it didn't seem fair to look into the stranger's eyes when he was feeling this little ache in the stomach, wanting to be nowhere but at Don's side.
And when he eventually went to sleep, he wondered if Don had ever felt the ache, too.
Probably not.
---
The first thing that crossed his mind when he woke up was the restraints that seemed to be all over his body. A heavy weight was pinning him to the mattress, making it difficult to move. He reacted on auto-pilot, instinct following years of fight training.
"What the fuck do you think you are doing?!" His stranger yelled at him, naked and bruised on the floor.
"Oh, shit" Colby whispered, finally connecting with reality. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to…"
"What's wrong with you, man?! You crazy? You forgot to take your pills or what?! If you didn't want to see me in
the morning, you just had to leave during the night!"
Colby froze. The guy kept cursing at him through the bathroom's door.
Colby put his head into his hands, sighing. He was clearly fucked up beyond words.
Months of waking up alone had driven him insane, indeed.
---
That's the exact moment he made his decision. Not that he really had a choice : it was either letting go or losing himself for good.
It was Don or him.
6.
The unavoidable talk took place sooner that he'd have thought.
He went to work straight after a quick shower at the motel, only to find Don in the break room.
Alone. Waiting for him.
"You alright, buddy?" the familiar calling was unusual at work but it happened, sometimes. "Because I headed to your place yesterday, there was nobody. And you didn't answer your cellphone ; you got myself a bit worried."
"Yeah, why, I just went to see some friends…" Colby waved to dismiss the question.
"Then you've got some pretty wild buddies, because you have love bites on your neck." Don said after a moment of observation.
Colby studied Don's face closely, but his boss showed no emotion, just looked blankly back at him. There wasn't a single trace of jealousy on his features. He almost looked like he was holding back a smirk.
"Sorry" he said simply while readjusting his tie to have his shirt covering better his neck.
Part of him was excusing himself to his boss, part of him couldn't help excusing himself to his lover.
Don didn't pick it up.
"So… do you intend to see your buddies again tonight or will you be free?" he asked casually, breaking into a relaxed smile.
"I'm… I'm busy tonight."
The low, sad voice was bad news, and Don didn't miss it.
He raised an eyebrow and wasn't really smiling anymore when he said : "Let's make it tomorrow?"
"I'm busy too." was Colby's only answer. He looked away to avoid Don's gaze.
Don was silent for a moment. His voice was colder when he talked again.
"Well, if things are that serious with your new buddy…"
He turned without waiting for an answer, but Colby gave him one anyway.
"That's not about him, the guy was nothing. I just can't do it anymore. That's not the kind of relationship I need."
I don't want to be a man who freaks out when someone holds him in the morning.
Don had nothing to answer to that, so he nodded and left.
---
Ten minutes later, they were working on the briefing room together.
Efficient. Polite.
Polite like they had never been before, actually.
7.
That was it. After the talk, there had been no argument, no explanation.
They didn't talk about it while they were seeing each other, they didn't do it after.
It helped Colby to deal with his feelings, though. It helped that Don didn't fight for them ; it showed Colby how wise his decision had been. That didn't prevent the pain, but at least pain was easier to deal with than regrets.
---
Three weeks after the break up, Colby finally felt alive again.
But three weeks after the break up, Charlie changed everything.
Colby gave the genius a visit, regarding their new case. He didn't miss Charlie's nervousness as the professor answered his questions, but he supposed it was part of the whole maths genius thing.
It wasn't, as he soon understood when Charlie asked him to stay a bit longer.
"What is it?"
"I, uh… I talked with Don yesterday. It's actually something we do often, you know, since he's always at my house, particularly these days. You wouldn't guess the guy has an apartement!" Charlie joked nervously, but Colby just raised an eyebrow. "And so, yesterday, we talked. He asked me about Amita and we chatted a bit about it because, you know, he loves playing the big brother who knows better than me, which is annoying of course, but as he does know better than me on some points, very little actually but he's, you know, the big brother…"
"Hold on, genius boy," Colby interrupted him. "It's not a speed race, you'll still win if you speak slowly. Just go straight to the point."
"Sorry, but I'm not exactly used to talking to my brother's ex-male lovers!"
He was blushing like a teenage girl, but at least no more verbal diarrhea. He was improving.
"Oh," Colby simply answered.
"Yeah, oh . " Charlie repeated.
"So… Don told you? What did he say exactly?"
"He didn't go into details," Charlie said quickly. "And I certainly didn't ask, but he told me you guys saw each other during about five months, and that you were the one to put an end to it three weeks ago..."
"… and now you're assuming that I'm the bad guy of the story, aren't you?" Colby finished.
"I'm not. That's not the point anyway. I don't exactly know what was going on between you two, but Don talked about it . It's a huge thing, knowing him. And he would probably do me painful things if he knew that I'm telling you that but… are you sure that there isn't any way for you two to… work things out?"
"Listen, first, I don't think Don wants to work things out. I don't know what gave you the impression that he was feeling bad about all that stuff but I see him everyday at work, I can assure you that he's his usual self…"
"It's just because he's very private," Charlie interrupted him. "I know him. I see him at the house everyday and even if he doesn't say anything… I know things aren't right. He, he… He even stopped seeing Robin!"
Colby paused, surprised. That was definitely a first.
"Ok, assuming that he does feel a little bad… It's not my call, it never has been. There's nothing I can do if he
doesn't talk about it."
"You could talk to him first, help him." Charlie proposed eagerly.
"You don't know what you are asking for," Colby laughed bitterly. "The thing we had was always one-sided, I did my best. If I ended things, it's because I couldn't stand it anymore. Do you know how hard it is to be with someone who shares nothing with you? Hell, he even left during the night so he wouldn't wake up with me!"
Charlie conveniently ignored the last sentence and the pain in Colby's voice. "But it's just the way he is, that doesn't mean he doesn't care." He looked at Colby as if he was himself hurting.
"Look, Don is lucky to have a brother that concerned about him but, really, there's nothing you can do about it."
"But Don hurts!" Charlie suddenly pleaded. "He's at the house every night, doing some brooding of his own, and he won't talk about it, and it's not good for him. He's a good guy, he doesn't deserve it!"
Colby just shook his head and walked away.
"I'm sorry, Charlie, but I can't. I can't do that. Not anymore."
8.
As much as he would have liked to remain impassible, Colby couldn't ignore Don's potential issues. Not when it was the man he had wanted to share so much with – not when he still had so much admiration and affection for him.
He did his best, regarding the circumstances, to put Don at ease without betraying his own resolution not to get too involved with him again. The next party he organized with some of his old buddies, he dropped a casual invitation to
Don.
Of course, Don declined – he had always refused to meet Colby's friends and wasn't really into buddies parties – but Colby already knew that. He just wanted to let him know that he was still welcome at his place ; that they still could be buddies.
A month passed without Don taking on the invitation. Not that Colby resented him – in fact he had almost forgotten about it : the month had been one of the hardest the team had ever known, full of exhausting cases that left them all tired to the bones.
He was cooking himself dinner when he received Don's call. He asked if he needed to cook for two, if Don was going to stay a little, and Don hesitantly said yes, it'd be a good idea.
The first minutes were awkward, Colby trying to talk about work to ease the tension between them, and Don not managing to talk at all. He almost looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here and Colby had the feeling that if turned his back, Don would vanish more rapidly that Clark Kent himself.
But Don didn't. He stayed and - clearly fighting against powerful demons - he finally let go of his restraint.
"We need to talk, Colby."
Colby, who was serving them, stopped what he was doing and sat on the chair opposed to Don's, nodding calmly.
"Yes, we do."
"I don't really know where to start." Don said, at loss for words and visibly trying to disappear in the glass he was holding.
"Just tell me what goes through your head, I'm good at decrypting." Colby answered gently.
It gave a little smile to Don, but the corners of his mouth soon turned it into a sad smile.
"I know you are good at being here for others, unlike me." He didn't let the bitterness silence him and kept going. "I knew from the beginning that you needed more than a fuck buddy, I knew it the second I entered your appartment, that night you were drunk. And yet I allowed myself to forget it because a fuck buddy was all I needed myself. I let my need come before yours, and I'm very sorry for that, Colby."
Colby wanted to reassure him but Don raised his hand in the air.
"No, I know what I did, I don't want you to forgive me. Just let me finish, please." It was hard enough as it was, he didn't need to be interrupted. "I don't know what our thing exactly meant for me - that's the kind of question I tried not to ask myself - but I've had time to think about it recently and one thing is for sure : that's what I needed. That's what I still need. It wasn't only about sex, it was about you keeping me balanced. It's about you being the only one that can understand what I go through everyday and can help me to both deal with it and forget it."
Don locked his eyes with Colby's an instant before looking away, not used to open himself that much and ill-at-ease at the admission of his weakness. There was a long pause, which Colby eventually broke in a slow, sad voice.
"Look, Don, I appreciate the fact that you tell me about this, but you know that even if it's what you need we can't do it, right? I know I can't. I can't do fuck buddies. I can't prevent myself from being attached more than physically, I'm sorry."
"I know, I know. I've thought a lot about that, too. I do know that I need you, but I don't want you to suffer from my need. I thought that we could try… you know… do things your way." With that he made a vague gesture that showed he was willing to accept any thing Colby would propose.
Colby raised an eyebrow but Don wasn't taking things lightly, he was very serious. He was very serious about admitting that he needed Colby, very serious about the fact that he wanted something back between them, and particularly serious about taking this something to a new level if he was asked to.
Colby had to consider it. He knew some thinking needed to be done, but he couldn't bring himself to. Don was here, open and honest, and that was enough for him.
"You realize that it means talking, and not leaving during the night, and not seeing other people?"
"I do. I don't care about other people, I've tried but it never works," Don answered with a bittersweet smile. "And I can bring fresh clothes with me when we aren't at my place."
"Oh, so I'm finally going to see your place?" Colby said in a teasing tone, a little bit surprised but certainly pleased.
"Yeah, well, the whole 'keys exchange' thing will have to wait a bit but we can definitely start sharing our evenings together between both places."
"And about the talking?" Colby asked more seriously - the mention of the keys bringing back uneasy memories.
"I can't promise you to ramble about anything but… yeah, I can work on that too. I don't want either of us to feel trapped. I want us to talk out of our problems, this situation won't happen again."
Colby slowly nodded, "I think we can give it a try, then."
With that he smiled warmly and resumed serving them.
---
Once dinner was over, Colby followed Don to his place.
They made love on the couch, twice, and held each other tight on Don's bed after.
Colby still feared that Don would leave him in the morning, and Don still doubted he was the right man to fix Colby over Dwayne's betrayal.
But they were trying, together, and that was all that mattered.
Epilogue.
Don didn't see it coming. The love. It all started like his other affairs : some comfort, some caring but basically just lots of sex. Even when they hugged gently on the couch, it was still physical for him.
That one time where he hadn't been able to wake up during the night scared the hell out of him. He was losing control over himself, he was being swallowed by their relationship. It took him two weeks to calm down and have his feelings in check again.
He was seing Robin too, from time to time, because he didn't want to be in an exclusive relationship. Having Robin was his way of preventing himself from being too much involved with Colby. And he really thought he had managed to do so, until Colby ended their affair.
That's when he started feeling the need. An unbearable need that Robin couldn't fill because she wasn't able to understand him like Colby was and she couldn't put his mind at peace like the man could.
Ending his affair with Robin had been only the first step ; it took him almost a month – a month of hard cases during which ones the need became painfully obvious – to admit that things weren't going to be right any time soon without Colby and that if he wanted to bring Colby back he needed to make concessions.
Bringing himself to talk to Colby had been a hell of a fight, too. He feared Colby, himself and the future. Too much fear for a single man one would have said, but Don fought hard his several years of deliberate loneliness to finally master the fear and allow himself to trust Colby – if not himself.
He never regretted his efforts. Colby made every of them worth hundred times more. Their new relationship allowed Don to discover a totally new Colby ; with his old army buddies, his weird habits, his sweet obsessions, his numerous talents. All the things he never looked at before.
And since then, never once did Don let Colby awake alone after a night together.
He would still wake up before Colby, but only because watching Colby's awaking was now his favorite moment of the day.
- end -