Right Where You Want To Be
MissBehaving
Summary: Don Eppes would rather be in a lot of place than stuck at the Dulles International Airport.
Special Agent Don Eppes was bored. Correction, he was extremely bored. He was stuck at Dulles International Airport because there was a freak storm that prevented him and his team from leaving Washington DC and the bitter cold behind.
The very high profile case that had the deputy director demanding that his team fly across country to solve was now officially closed. Now all he wanted to do was to go home to sunny L.A. where the air was polluted and the people were rude and the only thing in his apartment besides mouldy food were unfinished field reports.
Don slumped further into his seat. As a child, he had never been able to sit still for too long. He was one of those children who ran around crazy at lunch time and didn't stop until the bell for class had rung again. He often drove his teachers crazy during high school with his restless energy and his creative outlets had resulted in many after school detentions. Quantico had trained him to take that energy and to channel it into other forms of release. As an agent he had to wait for subpoenas, warrants. He had spent enough hours in surveillance vans as a rookie and then in later years during his man-hunting days to develop strategies to distract himself.
Now well into his thirties, Don Eppes had developed a whole arsenal of distraction techniques that included, but not limited to, reciting Latin conjugates, creating elaborate background stories for strangers that would wander by and his personal favourite, listing places he'd rather be at the moment. So far his list included eating his dad's cooking at Charlie's house, cleaning his apartment and depressingly enough, doing his backlog of paperwork.
When they arrived three hours ago his younger brother had immediately sat down next to him and pulled out a notebook and pen. Charlie was quickly absorbed by the task of filling the pages with numbers. So he hadn't noticed when David and Colby went rummaging through his bag (with Don's permission of course) for toys and the pair had spent the last hour and half alternating between amusing and frustrating themselves with a Rubik cube. Don's interest in watching the little coloured squares had worn off in the first ten minutes.
Thirty minutes in, Meagan had taken to using his lap as a pillow. It wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't woken up every time he shifted to alleviate the pins and needles down his right leg. She hadn't been sleeping very well these past few days and he didn't have the heart to disturb her again. Consequently, he could no longer feel anything in his leg.
Don noticed he hadn't heard the pages flip for a long while and looked down to see Charlie had fallen asleep. On him. Don watched with a little disbelief as Charlie shifted again to lean more heavily on Don's shoulder and his pen slipping from his grasp.
Colby looked at the trio and smirked at his boss. Unbelievable. He was a very competent field agent who suddenly had no other purpose other than to be a makeshift pillow for his team mates. He ran his fingers through Charlie's unruly curls and sighed.
"Love you Don," Charlie mumbled in his sleep and buried himself closer to his older brother.
And suddenly Don Eppes found that he didn't mind being stuck in an Airport. He was right where he wanted to be.
FIN