TITLE: Of Plot Bunnies and Poetry
AUTHOR: Tanager36
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Numb3rs or its characters nor do I make any money from writing this. If only.
SUMMARY: Don and Charlie have a secret identity.
a/n: For FraidyCat.
Don and Charlie sat at the dining room table of the Craftsman. Chinese take-out boxes littered the table. It was dark in the house except for the small circle of light provided by the chandelier. Charlie's laptop was on, and Don had several folders open in front of him.
Charlie sat back and sighed. "You know, I have all of this on my computer. Wouldn't it be easier to just let me input the new information for you," he said, fatigue evident in his voice.
Don replied testily, "I know you have it all on your computer. You've mentioned it several times in the last ten minutes. I told you, I like having the information written out in my own system."
"We're going to be here all night at this rate," Charlie whined. "Can we just move on?"
Don put the folder down and rubbed his face. He was as tired as Charlie, but he wasn't about to tell him that. "Fine. I'll add the rest of this stuff later. Let's move on to new business." He closed the folder and grabbed a legal pad and pen. "What have you got?"
Charlie closed his window and opened a new file. He perused the list. "Well, the first thing I want to bring up is location. I've had enough of South America to last me a lifetime. I'd like to see something really different. I was thinking Ireland." He looked at Don expectantly.
Don's brow knit in confusion. "Ireland? What are you thinking? Oh, wait, now I get it. This kind of thing comes up at the office all the time: the dreaded Irish drug cartels plaguing international law enforcement agencies." He shook his head in annoyance.
Charlie stuck his chin out defensively. "A simple 'no' would suffice. I happen to like Ireland and I thought it would be a nice change of pace. But I have others here." He looked back at the screen. "Ooh, here's a good one: Switzerland. I've always wanted to see Switzerland. It's supposed to be breath-taking."
Don's mouth gaped open. "Yeah. The Swiss are really threatening. That damn neutrality of theirs gives them that hard edge. Maybe the lederhosen-wearing bad guys can ski you to a chalet in the mountains where they force feed you hot cocoa. We could throw in some bobsledding and yodeling to kick the action up a notch." He threw his pen on the table. "Come on, Charlie. We've been over this a hundred times. It has to be plausible. If it's not believable, the fic doesn't hold up."
Charlie glared at Don. "For starters, lederhosen are German. And secondly, Switzerland is the banking capitol of the world. It has the potential for embezzlement, money laundering, and investment fraud, just to name a few. But if you don't like my ideas, why don't we just hear some of yours." He sat back and folded his arms.
Don went on, unperturbed. "Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea this time. I was thinking along the lines of a 'stranded in the wilderness' theme. The woods were a big hit in that Oregon series. Maybe a plane crash in Alaska. You could be injured, but starting out pretty ok, fading slowly. I'd do the whole 'worried big brother' thing. You'd be suffering. It would be great."
Charlie looked dubious. "I don't know. The last time we did a wilderness thing I had a madman marking me and trying to get my appendages." Charlie leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "Frankly, that one scared the hell out of me."
Don nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know what you mean, but it did make for a great series." He raised his eyebrows at Charlie hopefully. Charlie was a sucker for a series.
"Well," he started slowly. "That third part was pretty awesome. I had everyone sweating it out with that drug addiction thing. Still, a plane crash seems kind of weak."
"It's just the start. We just have to get her thinking in the right direction. Besides, it's been a while since it was just you and me. Remember 'Where are we?' It was nice to have some alone time."
A bashful grin spread across Charlie's face. "You want to be alone with me? Wow. That's nice, Don. Ok. We'll write up the Alaska thing."
Don smiled. "Good. Now I also have a couple of case related ideas here. Both involve agents that have snapped. One is recreating crime scenes, but making them look nice, like cleaning them up, picking beautiful people to be the victims, and getting rid of all the blood and gore, maybe finding some way to change the locale or scenery or something. I figured you would end up being a victim, but saved in time, of course."
Don looked up to gauge Charlie's interest. He nodded a hesitant approval. Case stories tended to make him nervous. "Ok, in this other one I have the bad guy going after intelligent, professional men, and he paints them before he kills them, either by slitting their wrists or giving them an overdose of barbituates. I can't decide which. What do you think?"
Charlie blanched. "Did you say paints them? Like stripes or something?"
"No, no. See, I was thinking like paints numbers on them. Or maybe it can relate to the victim's field, like musical notation if he's a musician, appropriate equations for a chemist. That kind of thing. Oh, and he would photograph his victims extensively, so there would be the added trauma of an abusive nature. You know. But you wouldn't have to be naked. You could still have pants or shorts on. Whatever."
Charlie stared at Don for so long Don started to squirm in his seat. "What?" He finally blurted out. "This is good stuff!"
Charlie slowly shook his head. "How do you sleep at night with those kinds of images floating through your head?"
It was Don's turn to get defensive. "Hey, don't give me that 'you're twisted' crap. You've come up with plenty of scary shit on your own. Whose idea was it to be a hostage for 4 months in El Salvador? And as I recall it was your idea to be brainwashed and end up thinking I'm the devil. You know how hard that is to go through? And what is it with you and this amnesia fixation? You have issues, bro."
Charlie looked appropriately contrite after Don's outburst. "Sorry," he mumbled. "You're right. That's good stuff. And it isn't anywhere near as creepy as that one time…" He trailed off.
Don looked at him sideways. "You mean…"
Charlie nodded, a slight whisper escaping him, "Anxiety." Both of them shuddered and looked around as if the mere name could bring old ghosts out of the past.
Don stood suddenly, shaking off the chill that had descended upon him. "Geez, Charlie, you got any lights in this house?" He walked around turning on several of the living room lights. Charlie followed suit, heading for the kitchen. "I'm going to make some coffee."
Ten minutes later they were both situated at the now well-lit dining room table. Don looked at his legal pad. "Some of the others had some requests."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Well, Colby wants another 'faithful partner' set-up, where he teams up with me, going to the ends of the earth to find you. He thinks it plays up his strong points. David really liked his part in that Santa Ana Winds story. He got to be angry and guilty, and willing to lay down his life to protect you. It was good for him. He doesn't get enough strong roles."
Charlie nodded in agreement. "What about Dad. Anything for him?"
Don flipped the page. "Here it is. He wants a new favorite recipe. He says he's been eating too much lasagna lately. He's concerned about the cholesterol."
Charlie chuckled. "I've got a request from Larry. He said since Megan isn't going to be around much longer, he'd like to see some action before she leaves."
Don, in the midst of a long drink of coffee, started choking and spitting coffee all over the table. Charlie jumped up and grabbed some napkins from their take-out, trying to sop up the coffee before it soaked into the folders.
"Are you ok?" he asked Don worriedly.
Don took a deep breath, wiping coffee from his chin. "Dammit, Charlie. Don't ever do that again."
Charlie stopped wiping and looked at Don confused. "Do what?"
Don grabbed a few of the napkins from Charlie and proceeded to dry his shirt off. "Look, Larry and Megan dating, is cute. Larry and Megan getting some action, is downright frightening. There is no way I'm submitting any ideas for that scenario."
Charlie laughed. "Looks like the big bad FBI agent has a weak spot, hmmm?"
Don scowled. "Let's just get back to work."
Charlie went back to his computer. "All I need to do is input this new data and we can get it out there. She'll see it eventually."
Don smiled. "Hey, that new plot bunny adoption center sure made our job a lot easier, didn't it?"
"Oh, yeah. We'll have steady work for a long time." Charlie stopped suddenly and looked at Don, a scowl on his face. "Though you almost blew it with that Tanager mix up. How hard is it to remember Tanager36? What possible reason could you have had for changing it to Tanager2?"
"I don't know. I couldn't log on, and it had been months since we used that name, I thought it might be good to try a new log-in."
Charlie went back to typing, the frown still in place. "Well, it was a terrible idea. It's confusing. Occam's razor, Don. Keep it simple. You stick to what you do, and let me handle the computer stuff, ok?"
Don sat back and folded his arms across his chest. "Oh, please. You suck at emailing her. If you fall all over yourself complimenting her anymore she's going to know something is up."
Once again Charlie stopped typing, his face a mixture of shock and offense. "Hey, I think I'm coming off as friendly and appreciative of all the hard work she puts into her fics. If it was up to you, you'd just submit a 'can't wait for the next chapter' review every once in awhile. She's one of those creative types, Don. She needs encouragement. I'm.there.for.her." He accentuated each syllable as Don rolled his eyes.
The two of them worked in silence for awhile. Don suddenly realized he no longer heard the quiet clicking of Charlie's typing. He looked over and saw Charlie staring off into space, deep in thought. Don waved his hand in front of Charlie's face. "Hey, you in there?"
Charlie started. "Hmm? Yeah, I was just thinking."
Don snorted. "Obviously. What about?"
"Well, do you think we should do anything, you know, as kind of a thank you?"
Don looked at Charlie for a minute, his brow furrowed. "You mean for her?"
Charlie shifted in his chair, slightly embarrassed by the topic. "Well, yes. Did you know she is currently working on her 89th fic? Half of those were multi chapter works. And that's not counting collaborations. She's a big reason why we have steady work. I just thought that maybe some sign of appreciation was in order."
Don nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe you're right. What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe a Certificate of Achievement. We could have it embossed."
Don grimaced. "For crying out loud, Charlie. She writes fan fiction. She's not graduating from Kindergarten."
"Ok, then we could go with something more literary. How about if we write her a poem?"
Don ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. "A poem? Are you serious?"
"Yeah, I think she would like that. Maybe something like this:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Your punctuation is perfect
And your spelling's great, too."
Don sat there shaking his head. "You see, this is why you never get the girl. You don't know the first thing about women."
Charlie sat forward, fuming. "I do, too, get the girl! What do you call Amita?"
"Oh, please. How many times has she actually lived to the end of a story? She's only around to make sure you have one more means of suffering."
"She's lived a couple of times…" Charlie faded off, knowing he wasn't going to win that argument.
"You want to show some appreciation? Leave it to me. I know just what to do."
Charlie looked at Don dubiously. "What did you have in mind?"
Don's eyes twinkled as a mischievous grin spread across his face. "I'm going with the old stand by."
Charlie looked at him a minute before it finally dawned on him. "Oh no. You're not talking about your 'all time favorite date' again are you? You are the only one that thinks that actually works."
"Save your breath, Chuck." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of gum. It was time to get serious. He looked squarely at Charlie, his jaw working hard. "Now make yourself useful and Google Oregon Laundromats for me."