This Ian/Colby series of drabbles was written for the Numb3rs drabble fic on LJ, in response to the prompts soldier, serve, desert and foreign. Word counts 300, 200, 100 and 200 respectively.

Soldier

The last time – and the first – he'd met Ian Edgerton was in the dust of Afghanistan. It had been an anonymous encounter in a hidden corner of the compound, the sort that everyone knew happened yet nobody acknowledged. Acknowledgement of those needs would be too close to talking about dying, about fear, and, for those with lovers at home, acknowledging it would make it seem like betrayal instead of the nothing that it was. Edgerton had been just another nameless guy in fatigues and shades.

The last time he'd met Ian Edgerton, he'd watched those long fingers wrapping round him, calluses the perfect friction against his smooth skin, knowing how to do him just right as he watched the hand moving up and down until he bit into his bottom lip and came, hard. When Shades guy had been evidently looking where best to wipe off his hand, Colby had found himself reaching out and lifting the fingers to his mouth, licking them clean in a way he'd never done before in a single one of these encounters he'd had over the last months.

Shades guy had nodded slightly when he'd finished, then zipped up and walked away, leaving Colby rearranging himself back into his fatigues and wondering what the hell he'd just done that for because way to look like a complete idiot.

That had been the last time. This time, it was all official and badges and agents. Colby didn't know if Edgerton even recognised him.

That was till David was on the phone reporting back to Don, and Edgerton looked over the top of his shades at Colby.

And Colby realised then that Edgerton didn't miss a thing, and Edgerton didn't forget a thing. He hoped this wasn't going to be the last time he saw Edgerton.

Serve

It's hardwired into him, this reaction to Ian. He doesn't know what Ian thinks of it, if anything. He doesn't know why Ian wears shades so often when his eyes give nothing away without them. He doesn't know anything except he can't not do this – can't not give Ian anything and everything.

Not that Ian asks; he takes what's his by right. Another century and he'd have been the Lord of the Manor – except that would make Colby a virginal peasant girl and hell no, he's not going there. But Ian wears that same sort of assurance just as lightly, the same knowledge that anything he wants is his to take.

Maybe it's that which makes Colby unable to refuse Ian. Or maybe it's the way Ian's fingers move on Colby's body like he knows him, knows better than Colby what it is he wants and needs. It's the way he slides into Colby, slow but unforgiving; even when Colby thinks he can't take any more Ian always knows that he can and he keeps going until Colby's helpless, shaking, filled and mindless and taking everything Ian's giving as though it's the last time and he'll never have this again.

Desert

This thing with Ian, he has to stop it. It's killing him. He can't keep doing this - letting Ian open him up, taking everything he has to give, then walking away, again and again. Colby knows he has to stop it.

"Yeah, not this time," he says, when Ian pauses by his desk. "Got work to do."

It's the first time, the very first time, he's ever said no to Ian.

There was never anything between them, not like that. Colby could have been anyone. So he can't understand, watching Ian walking away, why he feels he's betrayed Ian.

Foreign

He can't keep away. He knows it's a terrible idea on so many levels, but his life without Ian in it doesn't balance itself out again the way he had thought it would. Everything of himself that he'd given to Ian is still gone, and its absence still hurts.

When he walks up to Ian after the debrief and says, "You got a minute?" he knows exactly what he's doing.

When Ian follows his car back to his apartment, he knows what to expect. He knows this is one of the stupidest things he's done in a very long line of stupid, but he doesn't care any more. Like any addict, he knows only what he needs and what he wants, and what it will cost him doesn't matter any more.

What he doesn't expect, on his knees in his hallway, his eyes closed in rapture as his mouth moves on Ian's cock, is the touch of Ian's hands on his face, stilling him.

Then Ian's fingers under Colby's chin tilt his face up, until Colby's looking into Ian's eyes. And for the first time, Ian lets him see everything.

Later, Ian kisses him. It won't be the last time.