FIC: "Holding on to a lie," Part 7/? (Charlie/Colby, Alan, Amita, PG-13)
Title: "What patience means"
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 7/?
Characters: Charlie/Colby, Alan, Amita.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Colby and Charlie's dinner is interrupted by someone who needs some help.
Author's note: This is set after "The Connections Series" and "Not thinking about you."
Feedback: I love feedback. Every comment is a coffee bean that keeps me posting. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original aspects and any OCs.
Beta: The always amazing irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 6 - "Hiding the problem" (Colby/Charlie, David, Amita)
Holding on to a lie
Part 7: “What patience means”
It had been two weeks since Amita had started to work again at CalSci, and she had been acting more and more normal as time passed by. Now, Colby seemed to have started to feel better about her; at least he didn’t complain when she came to Charlie’s office and asked for results on different mathematical issues.
After all, she and Charlie worked in the same department and had to share their projects. Colby had to understand that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Amita was doing her best to recover the part of her life that had been damaged by Patrick Garner and her unsuccessful love life.
Of course, Charlie had a lot to do with the fact that Colby had calmed down. If there was something that the agent needed, it was understanding and lots of intimate moments, and his lover knew that. Even if they were taking things slow, that didn’t mean that they didn’t have fun together. In fact, just spending quality time at Charlie’s office or at the FBI headquarters, was more than enough for them.
All they did was talk and send each other meaningful looks. They really wanted to get to know themselves more, besides getting to know each other. Exploring their own feelings and the way they could interact seemed to be as thrilling as their previous sexual encounters. When the right moment came, they would really start to share more intimate moments in bed, even more than what they had done until now.
While the sun made its way through the sky, its light starting to vanish as the last hours of Friday arrived, Colby and Charlie walked by the corridors of the university. Students were around them, talking about their essays, their mid-terms and their plans for the weekend; both men had plans for the next two days as well.
“So, we’re going to have dinner at your house, today, and then what?” Colby muttered, obviously trying to sound casual, like they were only good friends. “Could we go to see a movie, or something?”
Charlie smiled, making huge efforts to hide how much he loved to hear that kind of proposals from his lover. “I don’t know, it depends on how many questions my Dad asks you this time.”
“Oh, I thought we were passed that, as it’s been more than two weeks since…” Colby immediately shut up, he had seemed to realize that he was about to talk about their secret while they were surrounded by people. “Since I started with my last case,” he corrected himself, just in time.
“Yeah, that case… I remember it,” the mathematician muttered, smiling, while they got to a corner that was very secluded compared to the rest they had seen. “We’ll see if we can go watch that movie… if my father let us, like I just told you.”
“Well… as long as he lets me wash the dishes for once…”
It was fantastically funny for Charlie to watch his father try to take care of everything, and insisting to Colby that he should stay at the table and don’t worry about cleaning up after they ate. Usually, the agent stood in his seat and awkwardly touched his ear while waiting for his lover and Alan to come back. What he didn’t know was that Charlie sometimes took a peak on what he was doing while they weren’t there; Colby’s gestures were adorable and made him melt every single time.
Charlie laughed loudly at the thought of that, and when he noticed that people were watching him, he covered his mouth without hesitation.
“You were thinking about how much of an idiot I look like when I’m waiting for you and Alan at the table, weren’t you?” Colby asked, a smirk on his face.
“How did you know that?” It was amusing that Colby knew about that, just when the opposite seemed to be totally out of the question. “I though you had no idea I…?”
“I saw you one time on the reflection of my spoon. Since then, I could always feel yours eyes on my back.”
Colby leaned on a column of lockers, smiling, his hands on his pockets. Charlie took his time to observe his lovely posture; there was something about the way his lover stood that seemed to leave a print of the kind of soul he was.
And so, I’m turning into Larry. Too much metaphysics here. Slowly, the mathematician let himself put a hand on his lover’s arm, and he muttered, “I’ve had my eyes on your back for months, now. It’s not like it’s a surprise.”
Now it was Colby’s turn to laugh and blush, most probably because he felt flattered by what Charlie had said. “I guess it’s not.”
“Shall we go home?”
“Sure… I’ll stand up before your dad does, so he doesn’t get the chance to make me stay on my seat while you two are working hard in the kitchen,” Colby muttered, making Charlie laugh one more time.
Once they had made it to the Eppes residence, Charlie opened the front door and thought how good it was that Ray-Ray had helped him and his family to rebuild part of the house that had been damaged by Amita’s kidnapper. Slowly, its structure was getting stronger, and it looked more and more like the place it had once been.
Inside, there it was Charlie’s father, who seemed to have just arrived from the grocery store. “Oh, hey, guys. How are you, Colby?”
“Good, I’m good,” the agent responded, putting his hands into his pockets again, like he was still nervous when Alan was present.
“C’mon in, sit down. Please,” Charlie’s father continued.
Colby looked at his lover, and the mathematician understood the silent message. Dad’s already decreasing the work load for him. At his rhythm, Colby’ll never get to do the dishes. He giggled and turned to Alan. “Dad, Colby knows he can sit down whenever he wants to. He knows that this is his house, too, isn’t that right?”
“Of course, of course. We have our doors open for you, Colby,” Alan said, smiling. While Colby and Charlie shared one funny look, he started to analyze the nutritional information of the food supplies he had just bought. “I can’t find my glasses, and I need them right now. I can barely read this, the letters are so small.”
“Oh, I’ll help you.” Charlie went towards his father and took the pack of tea he had in his hands. “What do you want to know?”
“Does that infusion have a good amount of vitamin C?”
“I guess that means your cold hasn’t got better yet,” Colby muttered with a shy tone of voice.
Sadly, Alan shook his head. “No, it seems that my body’s rejecting the possibility of healing itself, even if I’m still taking those pills.” He rubbed his forehead, sweating a little bit. “I’ve been feeling and acting like a ghost for the last week. I sneeze all the time, I can’t remember where I left my things, for example, my glasses. I’ve been looking for them all day, and I can’t find them anywhere,” Charlie’s father complained. “Eventually, I stopped trying and I had to rest for a while. I was so much tired than usual.”
“Then why did you go to the grocery store?” his son wanted to know. Now Charlie put his hands on his hips, like he was waiting for his father to give him a good excuse for exposing himself to multiple sources that could make his illness get worse. “Do you know that there are more than two hundred viruses that could cause you to get worse?”
“Charlie.”
“Do I have to talk about probabilities, again?” Charlie dared his father, because he knew that Alan felt overwhelmed every time he mentioned the odds of getting a much severe cold when he went outside.
But it seemed that Alan had already thought about an answer. “I knew you were going to say something like that, Charlie. However, on my defense, I can say that after I rested for a while, I felt like going out for a couple of minutes, with the purpose of making you and your guest a nice, warm dinner. Is that so bad?”
So there it was - Alan’s sweetness, always capable of making whatever doubt of worry Charlie had vanish. Maybe he had a cold, but he was still a caring father who was willing to sacrifice his health in order to make his sons happy.
“No, it’s not bad. It’s nice, actually,” Charlie had to admit, smiling. However, he was worried about his father. “Thank you very much, Dad… but I really think you should rest…”
“Oh, I don’t need it that much. I’m not that old, you know.”
Amused, Charlie watched Alan take his supplies to the kitchen. “Maybe I should help him with that.”
“Can I help, too?” Colby asked, like he wanted to start contributing with the cleaning right now, before the actual dinner came.
But still, the mathematician laughed and shook his head. “He’s a little sensitive about the resting and the ‘old man’ thing. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Colby laughed and ended up nodding. “Maybe you could sit down, try to relax… save your energy for the dishwashing…”
“Ok...”
When Colby seated on the couch, Charlie started to go towards the kitchen. But unexpectedly, someone called at the door.
“Dad, were you expecting someone for dinner, besides us?” he asked, because if someone else was there, and that person didn’t know about him and his lover, then they would have to pretend again.
Alan returned from the kitchen, rubbing his hands on a dish cloth. “No, we were supposed to be alone.”
“Maybe it’s Don.”
After taking a deep breath, Charlie went towards the door, determine to avoid spending his evening hiding his relationship with Colby. He knew that his lover wouldn’t be very happy if he did.
And when he opened the door, the person he least expected was there.
“Amita… what a… surprise,” he muttered, shocked by her sudden appearance.
“Hi, Charlie… I was wondering if you could help with a couple of algorithms that are giving me trouble. They’re the ones I’ve working on for the two weeks, you know. The ones you were so interested in,” Amita said, smiling sweetly. “I really need to get this done tonight, and I’d love it if you could guide me a little.”
“Um… sure, sure. Come in, please.” Charlie knew that this was going to upset Colby a lot, but he also couldn’t deprive Amita from the possibility of getting better.
When his lover turned around, probably trying to control himself, the mathematician heard Amita say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company. I can come back another time…”
“No, that’s ok. We were just going to have dinner…”
“Yeah, but I’m interrupting you, guys… I don’t really think I should stay…”
Charlie insisted that she stay anyways. “Hey, I said it’s ok. You said you needed to get the algorithms now.” He pointed at the table. “We can work on them for a while. I don’t have a problem with helping you to solve those. Why don’t you take a seat?”
Even if Amita hesitated, she ended up seating at the table and pulling out printed papers, books and her laptop from her bag.
The three men observed her, and then they formed a circle so they could speak without her hearing them.
“Charlie, are you sure?” Alan wanted to know. It seemed that he still wasn’t convinced that his son was ok with Amita being in the house, even if she had been there for the last time a couple of weeks ago.
Charlie nodded. “Yeah. I invited her to come in,” he answered, and when his father went to talk to Amita, he and Colby were left alone in a corner of the living room.
Now, the mathematician could hear his lover breathing hard. “I couldn’t leave her with those algorithms if she needs them to be solved today. CalSci’s board’s keeping an eye on her work, following her every step, just in case.”
“But does she really need to stay? We were supposed to have dinner, maybe go to the cinema…” Colby said, and he looked a little angry.
“Listen to me, her calculations didn’t seem to be that hard to solve, even if they were giving us a hard time. I don’t think it’ll take us more than an hour. Then she’ll be gone.”
It didn’t seem to be a very good promise, but Charlie was sure that things would turn out to be that way. This is what patience means. She’s been in pain because of us, the least I can do is help her keep her job. One hour and we’ll have dinner with my Dad, the three of us alone. Please, Colby.
And Colby understood the situation, even if Amita’s arrival wasn’t in their plans. He nodded, took a deep breath and muttered, “Ok. I think I can handle it, don’t worry.”
Charlie immediately put a hand on his lover’s arm, caressing it softly, and they both went towards the table.
Amita smiled when she saw them approaching her. Then she started to talk about equations in terms that only her ex-boyfriend could understand, and soon Charlie was obsessed with the exciting quest of a good answer for a very challenging algorithm.
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 7/?
Characters: Charlie/Colby, Alan, Amita.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Colby and Charlie's dinner is interrupted by someone who needs some help.
Author's note: This is set after "The Connections Series" and "Not thinking about you."
Feedback: I love feedback. Every comment is a coffee bean that keeps me posting. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original aspects and any OCs.
Beta: The always amazing irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 6 - "Hiding the problem" (Colby/Charlie, David, Amita)
Holding on to a lie
Part 7: “What patience means”
It had been two weeks since Amita had started to work again at CalSci, and she had been acting more and more normal as time passed by. Now, Colby seemed to have started to feel better about her; at least he didn’t complain when she came to Charlie’s office and asked for results on different mathematical issues.
After all, she and Charlie worked in the same department and had to share their projects. Colby had to understand that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Amita was doing her best to recover the part of her life that had been damaged by Patrick Garner and her unsuccessful love life.
Of course, Charlie had a lot to do with the fact that Colby had calmed down. If there was something that the agent needed, it was understanding and lots of intimate moments, and his lover knew that. Even if they were taking things slow, that didn’t mean that they didn’t have fun together. In fact, just spending quality time at Charlie’s office or at the FBI headquarters, was more than enough for them.
All they did was talk and send each other meaningful looks. They really wanted to get to know themselves more, besides getting to know each other. Exploring their own feelings and the way they could interact seemed to be as thrilling as their previous sexual encounters. When the right moment came, they would really start to share more intimate moments in bed, even more than what they had done until now.
While the sun made its way through the sky, its light starting to vanish as the last hours of Friday arrived, Colby and Charlie walked by the corridors of the university. Students were around them, talking about their essays, their mid-terms and their plans for the weekend; both men had plans for the next two days as well.
“So, we’re going to have dinner at your house, today, and then what?” Colby muttered, obviously trying to sound casual, like they were only good friends. “Could we go to see a movie, or something?”
Charlie smiled, making huge efforts to hide how much he loved to hear that kind of proposals from his lover. “I don’t know, it depends on how many questions my Dad asks you this time.”
“Oh, I thought we were passed that, as it’s been more than two weeks since…” Colby immediately shut up, he had seemed to realize that he was about to talk about their secret while they were surrounded by people. “Since I started with my last case,” he corrected himself, just in time.
“Yeah, that case… I remember it,” the mathematician muttered, smiling, while they got to a corner that was very secluded compared to the rest they had seen. “We’ll see if we can go watch that movie… if my father let us, like I just told you.”
“Well… as long as he lets me wash the dishes for once…”
It was fantastically funny for Charlie to watch his father try to take care of everything, and insisting to Colby that he should stay at the table and don’t worry about cleaning up after they ate. Usually, the agent stood in his seat and awkwardly touched his ear while waiting for his lover and Alan to come back. What he didn’t know was that Charlie sometimes took a peak on what he was doing while they weren’t there; Colby’s gestures were adorable and made him melt every single time.
Charlie laughed loudly at the thought of that, and when he noticed that people were watching him, he covered his mouth without hesitation.
“You were thinking about how much of an idiot I look like when I’m waiting for you and Alan at the table, weren’t you?” Colby asked, a smirk on his face.
“How did you know that?” It was amusing that Colby knew about that, just when the opposite seemed to be totally out of the question. “I though you had no idea I…?”
“I saw you one time on the reflection of my spoon. Since then, I could always feel yours eyes on my back.”
Colby leaned on a column of lockers, smiling, his hands on his pockets. Charlie took his time to observe his lovely posture; there was something about the way his lover stood that seemed to leave a print of the kind of soul he was.
And so, I’m turning into Larry. Too much metaphysics here. Slowly, the mathematician let himself put a hand on his lover’s arm, and he muttered, “I’ve had my eyes on your back for months, now. It’s not like it’s a surprise.”
Now it was Colby’s turn to laugh and blush, most probably because he felt flattered by what Charlie had said. “I guess it’s not.”
“Shall we go home?”
“Sure… I’ll stand up before your dad does, so he doesn’t get the chance to make me stay on my seat while you two are working hard in the kitchen,” Colby muttered, making Charlie laugh one more time.
Once they had made it to the Eppes residence, Charlie opened the front door and thought how good it was that Ray-Ray had helped him and his family to rebuild part of the house that had been damaged by Amita’s kidnapper. Slowly, its structure was getting stronger, and it looked more and more like the place it had once been.
Inside, there it was Charlie’s father, who seemed to have just arrived from the grocery store. “Oh, hey, guys. How are you, Colby?”
“Good, I’m good,” the agent responded, putting his hands into his pockets again, like he was still nervous when Alan was present.
“C’mon in, sit down. Please,” Charlie’s father continued.
Colby looked at his lover, and the mathematician understood the silent message. Dad’s already decreasing the work load for him. At his rhythm, Colby’ll never get to do the dishes. He giggled and turned to Alan. “Dad, Colby knows he can sit down whenever he wants to. He knows that this is his house, too, isn’t that right?”
“Of course, of course. We have our doors open for you, Colby,” Alan said, smiling. While Colby and Charlie shared one funny look, he started to analyze the nutritional information of the food supplies he had just bought. “I can’t find my glasses, and I need them right now. I can barely read this, the letters are so small.”
“Oh, I’ll help you.” Charlie went towards his father and took the pack of tea he had in his hands. “What do you want to know?”
“Does that infusion have a good amount of vitamin C?”
“I guess that means your cold hasn’t got better yet,” Colby muttered with a shy tone of voice.
Sadly, Alan shook his head. “No, it seems that my body’s rejecting the possibility of healing itself, even if I’m still taking those pills.” He rubbed his forehead, sweating a little bit. “I’ve been feeling and acting like a ghost for the last week. I sneeze all the time, I can’t remember where I left my things, for example, my glasses. I’ve been looking for them all day, and I can’t find them anywhere,” Charlie’s father complained. “Eventually, I stopped trying and I had to rest for a while. I was so much tired than usual.”
“Then why did you go to the grocery store?” his son wanted to know. Now Charlie put his hands on his hips, like he was waiting for his father to give him a good excuse for exposing himself to multiple sources that could make his illness get worse. “Do you know that there are more than two hundred viruses that could cause you to get worse?”
“Charlie.”
“Do I have to talk about probabilities, again?” Charlie dared his father, because he knew that Alan felt overwhelmed every time he mentioned the odds of getting a much severe cold when he went outside.
But it seemed that Alan had already thought about an answer. “I knew you were going to say something like that, Charlie. However, on my defense, I can say that after I rested for a while, I felt like going out for a couple of minutes, with the purpose of making you and your guest a nice, warm dinner. Is that so bad?”
So there it was - Alan’s sweetness, always capable of making whatever doubt of worry Charlie had vanish. Maybe he had a cold, but he was still a caring father who was willing to sacrifice his health in order to make his sons happy.
“No, it’s not bad. It’s nice, actually,” Charlie had to admit, smiling. However, he was worried about his father. “Thank you very much, Dad… but I really think you should rest…”
“Oh, I don’t need it that much. I’m not that old, you know.”
Amused, Charlie watched Alan take his supplies to the kitchen. “Maybe I should help him with that.”
“Can I help, too?” Colby asked, like he wanted to start contributing with the cleaning right now, before the actual dinner came.
But still, the mathematician laughed and shook his head. “He’s a little sensitive about the resting and the ‘old man’ thing. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Colby laughed and ended up nodding. “Maybe you could sit down, try to relax… save your energy for the dishwashing…”
“Ok...”
When Colby seated on the couch, Charlie started to go towards the kitchen. But unexpectedly, someone called at the door.
“Dad, were you expecting someone for dinner, besides us?” he asked, because if someone else was there, and that person didn’t know about him and his lover, then they would have to pretend again.
Alan returned from the kitchen, rubbing his hands on a dish cloth. “No, we were supposed to be alone.”
“Maybe it’s Don.”
After taking a deep breath, Charlie went towards the door, determine to avoid spending his evening hiding his relationship with Colby. He knew that his lover wouldn’t be very happy if he did.
And when he opened the door, the person he least expected was there.
“Amita… what a… surprise,” he muttered, shocked by her sudden appearance.
“Hi, Charlie… I was wondering if you could help with a couple of algorithms that are giving me trouble. They’re the ones I’ve working on for the two weeks, you know. The ones you were so interested in,” Amita said, smiling sweetly. “I really need to get this done tonight, and I’d love it if you could guide me a little.”
“Um… sure, sure. Come in, please.” Charlie knew that this was going to upset Colby a lot, but he also couldn’t deprive Amita from the possibility of getting better.
When his lover turned around, probably trying to control himself, the mathematician heard Amita say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company. I can come back another time…”
“No, that’s ok. We were just going to have dinner…”
“Yeah, but I’m interrupting you, guys… I don’t really think I should stay…”
Charlie insisted that she stay anyways. “Hey, I said it’s ok. You said you needed to get the algorithms now.” He pointed at the table. “We can work on them for a while. I don’t have a problem with helping you to solve those. Why don’t you take a seat?”
Even if Amita hesitated, she ended up seating at the table and pulling out printed papers, books and her laptop from her bag.
The three men observed her, and then they formed a circle so they could speak without her hearing them.
“Charlie, are you sure?” Alan wanted to know. It seemed that he still wasn’t convinced that his son was ok with Amita being in the house, even if she had been there for the last time a couple of weeks ago.
Charlie nodded. “Yeah. I invited her to come in,” he answered, and when his father went to talk to Amita, he and Colby were left alone in a corner of the living room.
Now, the mathematician could hear his lover breathing hard. “I couldn’t leave her with those algorithms if she needs them to be solved today. CalSci’s board’s keeping an eye on her work, following her every step, just in case.”
“But does she really need to stay? We were supposed to have dinner, maybe go to the cinema…” Colby said, and he looked a little angry.
“Listen to me, her calculations didn’t seem to be that hard to solve, even if they were giving us a hard time. I don’t think it’ll take us more than an hour. Then she’ll be gone.”
It didn’t seem to be a very good promise, but Charlie was sure that things would turn out to be that way. This is what patience means. She’s been in pain because of us, the least I can do is help her keep her job. One hour and we’ll have dinner with my Dad, the three of us alone. Please, Colby.
And Colby understood the situation, even if Amita’s arrival wasn’t in their plans. He nodded, took a deep breath and muttered, “Ok. I think I can handle it, don’t worry.”
Charlie immediately put a hand on his lover’s arm, caressing it softly, and they both went towards the table.
Amita smiled when she saw them approaching her. Then she started to talk about equations in terms that only her ex-boyfriend could understand, and soon Charlie was obsessed with the exciting quest of a good answer for a very challenging algorithm.