Dragons and Afternoons
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:M or anything of the sort. This is just for fun
Order of Operations: Blind Memory, The Edge of Darkness, All These Things, Thrill of Hope, Engraved Invitations, Falling Down
We got the afternoon
You got this room for two
One thing I've left to do
Discover me
Discovering you
"Your Body is a Wonderland", John Mayer
Calleigh came into the house quietly. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she wasn't entirely sure if Tim would be studying or napping. He wasn't in the living room, so she didn't call out, but just walked down the hall to the bedroom to change.
Tim was lying on the bed, with his back to the door. She smiled a little as she watched him from the doorway. He'd clung stubbornly to the idea of an afternoon nap on most days, even though he'd long since passed the point where it was actually a necessity. She had a feeling he insisted on them more to have an excuse to lie down somewhere quiet and be still than because he really needed the sleep. He didn't seem to have noticed she was there, so she kicked off her shoes and crawled up on the bed, putting her arms around him from behind.
He jumped, startled. "Hey," she said, softly. "It's just me."
"Better be," he mumbled, blinking sleep from his eyes.
"Sorry. I didn't think you were actually asleep," she said.
"Well, I'm certainly not now," he said, as she pulled his shirt aside to kiss the spot where his neck joined his shoulder. He shivered as she grinned into his neck.
"Good," she said, leaving no doubt about what her intentions were.
He flipped onto his back as she undid his shirt. "You're home early," he commented, between kisses.
"Mm-hm," she said. "Horatio owed me time from staying late on Sunday. I finished up what I was working on, there wasn't anything else pressing, so I cut out early, 'cause I knew you'd be home, and I've spent more than enough time at work this week."
"What would you have done if I wasn't here?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her as he slipped her shirt off.
"I wasn't too worried about that," she said, kissing him deeply. "The schedule said you'd be home." Tim was incredibly strict about that schedule. Probably more than Andy had really intended, but it was good for him. He was a lot steadier than he had been. She loved it.
"Humph," he said, but he didn't sound terribly put out.
At that point, things narrowed down to hands and kisses and shed clothing. They weren't in any hurry; lazy caresses were perfect for loving in a midsummer afternoon's time.
Eventually, though, they dissolved into their usual sprawled tangle of bodies and covers. It had started to rain, and Calleigh leaned her head back against the pillow to listen to the rhythm of the raindrops hitting the tile roof. "Mmm. I love that sound."
"Me too," Tim mumbled sleepily from where he was sprawled on his stomach next to her, with his head resting on her shoulder. "'s why I never replaced the roof."
"I'm glad," she said. "Rain just doesn't sound the same anywhere else." She brought her hand up and started to trace the outlines of the tattoo on his left shoulder blade. She'd known about the tattoo a long time ago, but she'd never seen it until he was hurt. But once they started sleeping together, it had become one of her favorite places to lavish attention. It was an odd thing, though- three strange identical interlocking shapes in blue, green and red. It wasn't the sort of thing she would have immediately thought of for a tattoo on Tim, but she'd never thought to ask about it. "Tim?" she asked, suddenly curious.
"Mmm?" he murmured.
"What's this? Your tattoo, I mean," she asked.
"'s a fractal," he said, coming a bit more awake. "A dragon curve."
"A fractal," she said, blankly. It wasn't an answer she'd expected.
"Yeah, you know, a shape that's self-similar at any scale," he said. "No matter what size any part of it is, it's a rough copy of the whole thing."
"No, no, I know what a fractal is, honey. I was just surprised. It didn't seem like something you'd choose for a tattoo," she explained.
"Ah," he said. He was quiet a moment, then started, "Well, you see, it's like this," Calleigh became instantly alert. Any time Tim used the phrase "it's like this" or "the thing is", it meant he was about to tell you something very important. She'd learned that usually it also meant that something was about to make a lot of sense, too. "Jason was going to be a mathematician. He was really fascinated with fractals and chaos theory- they're related, you know?"
"I knew that, yes," she said, softly, letting him know she was listening, but trying not to break the spell of his words. If he was interrupted, he probably wouldn't continue. She'd learned that, too.
"Anyway," he continued, "There was a long time where I didn't really remember what happened. I mean, I knew there'd been an accident and Jason was dead and my knee was screwed up, and it had been cold, but it was like anytime I tried to think about it and piece it together, I got sick to my stomach and really panicky. So, I just had this sense that something had gone very wrong and that's why he was gone, but nothing was really clear at all." He was quiet again, and she kept tracing the tattoo, waiting patiently for the next words to come.
"Maybe some five years after everything happened- Jason's death, I mean, and me running away- there was some things going on here, in Miami, that weren't, well, weren't good," he said. Calleigh instantly translated that into things happened that were very traumatic and I don't know how to talk about them, even if I wanted to, which I don't. She knew how to tell when he was underestimating things now. "And all of a sudden, I understood what happened. I could see it all- I was dreaming it, you see, and it just all became very real."
"I imagine that was a bit scary," she said, when he didn't continue right away.
"God, yes," he said. "There was stuff going on, and these dreams, and I thought I was losing my mind. My parents and I weren't talking right then- it was just after I bought the house, actually. So it wasn't like I could call them up and say, 'hey, did this happen like this? Am I crazy?'" he said, wryly. "I finally asked Marianne, and she told me that, yes, that was basically what happened to the best of her knowledge, since she hadn't been there at the time. It was a relief- I mean, at least I wasn't really going crazy." He shrugged. "Well, crazier."
"Post-traumatic stress?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, nodding against her shoulder. "At any rate, now that I knew what happened, I just felt like I needed to do something. I don't know, there was a lot of pain, and I thought, well, a tattoo would hurt, and maybe that would cancel it all out? I wasn't thinking all that clearly, although I don't regret it at all. It did make sense, a bit, as a way to remember. I went and found a book with fractal pictures- they were kind of popular at the time, it wasn't too hard to find- and found one I remember Jason figuring out how to graph- they're all mathematical equations, so, you know, they can be graphed and stuff. He did that all the time. The dragon curve was one of his very favorites, so that's the one I chose."
"I like it," she said. "I always did, before I knew what it was for."
"I've only seen it a couple of times," he said. "I made them do it on my shoulder blade so I wouldn't have to see it all the time, but I could if I wanted to. I don't usually want to, but knowing it's there makes me feel better, somehow."
"I'll look at it for you," she promised. "How's that?"
"I like that idea, actually," he said.
"Well, good," she said, relieved that he'd been able to talk about it. It was the most he'd ever told her about that part of his life at one time.
He chuckled. "Jason would have been a great mathematician. I remember we took calculus up at the university the summer before our senior year, and he used to drive the professor up the wall, coming up with things that made sense, but were really beyond the scope of the class. The college kids hated him- he had no trouble whatsoever thinking in those kinds of terms, while everyone else was trying to wrap their brains around such weird things. Calc really is weird, you know."
"Oh, I know," she said. "But fun, too, sort of. At least in how it relates to physics."
"You would think so," he said, but she could tell he was smiling. "Anyway. That's the story of the tattoo."
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," he replied, sounding drowsy again.
"Can't fall asleep," she said, shrugging her shoulders to jostle him. "I've already thrown you off schedule today, don't want to get too far gone."
"Schedule was shot all to hell already. They were running something like 45 minutes late at the orthodontist today," he mumbled.
"Ouch. Did they tighten you up today?" she asked.
"Nope. Just checked things out. I might get to get them off sooner than we thought," he said. "September instead of December."
"That's good news," she said.
"Yup," he said.
"Well, we still have to get up. I need to go to the A&P tonight if I'm going to get potato salad fixings for the barbecue over at Horatio's this weekend," she said.
"Could do all the shopping, then. And have more time tomorrow, if you wanted to go and check out those closet things you were talking about," he said, yawning.
"That's a good idea. You think redoing the closet would help?" she asked. They'd been reorganizing the house bit by bit since his birthday, trying to make it more "their house" instead of "Tim's house".
"Yeah," he said. "Get all your stuff in one place. We definitely need more bookshelves, anyway. I thought maybe we could redo the office so you could set up your computer in there."
"I like that idea," she said. "Shall we put that on the schedule for tomorrow, then? Shopping for the house?"
"Yup," he said.
"In that case, Sleepy, we really do need to get up," she said, looking at the clock. "It's nearly 6 already."
He groaned, but sat up. "Humph."
She laughed. "Come on, I want a shower before dinner."
"Mmm. Wanna save water?"
"We do that, we'll never get to the store," she laughed. "You go find dinner. I'll shower."
"All right, all right," he said, kissing her as she stood up. "Love you."
"Love you, too," she said, grinning at him as he left the room and headed for the kitchen. Schedule disruptions are definitely something I have to consider doing more of in the future, she thought. They're just so enlightening. And fun. She hummed to herself as she walked into the bathroom.