Cause and Effect
by elfin


Standing in the dim darkness, back to the locked door, he watched his brother turn in his sleep, sprawling over the large mattress, limbs flung out.  Don pitied anyone trying to share a bed and get some sleep with this man and wondered if there was an algorithm that would pick out people Charlie had spent the night with based on the patters of their bruises.

In his head he knew he shouldn't be doing this.  They'd broken this particular habit a long time ago, stopped because from both moral and legal standpoints it was wrong.  But his skin remembered his brother's touch - that addictive combination of adoring worship and intimate exploration - his body recalled in perfect detail the pleasure Charlie could inflict on it, and tonight it was what he was craving.

Charlie would turn him away, he told himself, smell the beer and bourbon on his breath and kick him back to his old room.  But in his heart he knew he was fooling himself.  Charlie had never denied him and he wouldn't tonight, not knowing what he knew, not having stepped through the scene outside the school; the bullet shells lying in pools of drying blood, the three dead teenagers being zipped into body bags while their families cried out the grief against the cordon they'd been forced behind.  It was one of the worst scenes he'd witnessed, would have kept Charlie away from it if he'd been thinking straight.  But he hadn't been after the shoot out, after watching two colleagues killed right in front of him, unable to stop it.

Tonight he wanted to be in the arms of someone who loved him heart and soul, even like this, at his worst, unshaven, unshowered; wired on caffeine and poisoned by booze.  The only person he could think of was Charlie. 

Crossing the room silently, he perched on the edge of the bed next to one outstretched arm.  Licking his lips he drew the back of his index finger across Charlie's upturned palm, over the sensitive skin at his wrist, along the hairless underside of his right arm.  His brother shifted and woke.

"Don?"  Blinking in the darkness he gathered up his limbs and pushed himself into a sitting position.  "Are you okay?"

In the past, he remembered, he'd never known how to ask, had just got into bed beside his brother in the darkness and Charlie had given himself like it was the most natural thing in the world.  It had always been wrong, but never once had it felt that way.  Even in sex Charlie's need for discovery was unbridled and when that incredible focus was entirely directed at him, Don found it the most erotic thing in the whole damned world.  Reaching out, he silently pushed his fingers into the mess of loose, dark curls on Charlie's head and he watched big brown eyes widen.

"I need you."  The words came unbidden, terrifyingly easy to say.  And just like Don knew he would, Charlie pushed back the duvet welcoming him and scooted across the blue sheets to make room.  No question, no discussion; it shouldn't be this easy.  But Don was already undressing as Charlie pulled the T-shirt over his own head and kicked his boxers onto the floor.

Don climbed into the bed, lying the length of his brother, face to face, fingers burying themselves in the thick black hair, drawing Charlie's head around and only then did he encounter hesitation.

"We never kiss," his brother whispered, not a denial exactly, but nevertheless a pause. 

"I want to kiss you."

The hesitation evaporated in a heartbeat, Charlie's mouth met his own and in the moment Don tilted his head, his brother's willing tongue slipped imploringly over his own.

#

Some days everything worked out; evidence was clear, the pieces of a case fell into place and the answer presented itself like a stripper at the end of a pole dance.  Some days nothing fitted together, all the pieces were the wrong shape and the patterns just remained obscurely hidden.  He'd been staring at their suspect's file for the last two hours but still he couldn't see a motive.  Charlie had been so certain when he'd picked the guy out of a whole pile of names, faces, facts and figures.

Charlie… he had days like this.  Days when he stared blankly at his blackboards waiting for that ethereal light bulb to go on, nights when he'd come home in the early hours, drop into the sofa and stare at the television with the sound muted until his mind finally let him catch a little bit of sleep.  He couldn't define his feelings towards Charlie any longer, couldn't put a name to the catch in his throat or the stumble of his heart when he thought about his little brother.  Not so little now.  But still his brother, always.  And wasn't that the problem?

"Don?"

"David, not now, huh?"  He waved the other agent away, needing to at least attempt to concentrate, try to focus on breaking their suspect before two more innocent people died.

"Don, it's important."

"So is this."

"It's about Charlie."  Don turned, a shot of adrenaline giving David his undivided attention. 

"What?"

"He's been arrested."

#

"There was a fight in the holding pen just after we brought your brother in."  Simmering just below boiling point, Don followed Sergeant Stokes back towards the cells, badge hooked into his jacket pocket, pulling rank in a way he wouldn't usually but he wasn't thinking all that straight, couldn't through the fury burning inside him.  No one - no one - arrested his baby brother.  "He freaked out so we moved him into one of the cells."  The news had pushed his anger up a notch or two even when he didn't think that was possible, but when he laid eyes on Charlie, his genius brother, sitting on the floor just to the right of the door, back to the bars, knees pulled up to his chest, shoulders hunched forward, he almost shot someone.

"Get him outta there."

"Agent Eppes…."

"I said, get him out."

Reaching through the bars, Don dropped his hand to the top of Charlie's head and felt his brother jump at the touch.  "It's okay."  His head turned, those big brown eyes looking up at him with such utter relief.  "It's okay."

The moment the key turned in the lock, Charlie was on his feet, the moment the door was open he was out of the cell, fingers wrapping tight around Don's wrist like he was scared to death Don would leave him there.  "It's okay, buddy."  Don put his hand over Charlie's, checked him over visually for signs of injury then rounded on the cop.  "What the hell is going on?  Why was he arrested?"

"Don…."

"It's okay, Charlie.  I'll get you out of here.  First I want to know…."

"Don, please…."

"Charlie, I said…."

"I was speeding, okay?"

The confession was at once expected and bizarre.  Don was momentarily thrown, frowning at his brother, "What?"

"I was speeding."

"You were speeding… and?"

"And they pulled me over, started yellin' at me to… to get my hands on the dash...."

Immediately Don's attention was back with the cop.  "You arrested him for speeding?"

"We got a report of a perp taking pot shots out his car window.  The plate we got matched this guy's…."

"This guy is a world class, eminent Mathematician, a Professor at CalSci.  He doesn't even own a gun."

Annoyingly the cop refused to look flustered.  "All I can tell y'is there must have been some mix up."

Charlie's hand tightened impossibly around his wrist and Don became aware of a jeering; taunting voices, addressing his brother from the other cells.  He caught one particularly crude suggestion, up close and personal, and in a moment he had his hand around the guy's throat, arm through the bars, fingers squeezing.  "Care to repeat that?"

"Don, please… I just want to get out of here."

He nodded, directing Charlie through the station with Stokes bringing up the rear.  "The call that came in, the anonymous tip, I want a recording of it sent through to the FBI office."

"The FBI's gonna investigate this?"

"Absolutely.  Professor Eppes is our top consultant.  People mess with him, they answer to us."  Leading him out of the station, Don resisted the urge to give their top consultant a great big hug.

#

"Tea is a ritual, Charles, and rituals must be partaken of or they cease to be so."

Through the glass walls of the refectory, Larry spied the small group of his colleagues sitting at a table, cups and saucers in a similar circle to themselves.  He smiled to himself; that feeling of belonging, of routine, as always having a calming effect on him.  No matter he wasn't participating this afternoon, the ritual continued and would be played out tomorrow, and the day after that.  He looked across at the man ambling along next to him.  Clutching a collection of folders and files to his chest, Charlie was smiling, squinting in the bright, warm afternoon sun.  His protégé was the same; a calming, warming sight, even at his most flustered.  He loved Charlie, because despite everything, and of all the things he could be described as, he didn't have a bitter bone in his body.  And Larry needed that, needed to know that even if the pinnacle of his own career was passed, Charlie's was still in the future.

Then again, he thought, maybe the pinnacle of his career was Charles Eppes.  Maybe, he would be continuous, a constant shining star in his blessed life.  Whatever he'd done to deserve Charlie, he would never know.

"…so I just need you to sanity check my assumptions, and I understand the import of Earl Grey Tea, Larry, but I think Don puts the importance of preventing more killings above it in my list of priorities."

"Can you hear what you're saying?  Don's more than influencing your work, Charles, he's dictating what you're doing at any time."  The smile faded and Charlie ducked his head.  Larry felt like a real bastard for doing that.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.  I know how much it means to you, working with Don.  And I like him, Charlie, I really do, he cares for you and that's a lovely thing.  You know I just hate to see you wasting the optimum years of your Mathematical life finding murderers and assassins and working out who might die from terrorist attacks.  Wow… it's a horrible world we live in, isn't it?  What must it have been like to live in a time when the greatest problem was how to calculate the circumference of a circle?"

"Uncomfortable and unpleasant."

He glanced up, glad to see Charlie smiling again.  "I'm sure you're right."

"I am right."

The Mathematics building was cold after the warmth of the afternoon.  Larry shivered as he stepped into the grey hall and the door closed behind him.  They took the stairs up to the classroom where Charlie had spent the majority of the last week working day and night to write an algorithm to help his brother find the location of two hostages and their kidnappers.  The number of variables he'd been working with was huge, and the amount of actual data pitifully small.  Larry knew his star student loved a challenge, but these last couple of days he'd been worried that Charlie had fallen into that all-too familiar trap called obsession.

Mathematicians were as prone to it as physicists, something tended to get into the brain that couldn't be ignored, couldn't be pushed away or postponed.  Luckily with Charlie these things tended to be short lived because with the exception of P vs NP he was good enough to solve his chosen problems quickly.  A week of living on caffeine and lacking sleep until there was chalk dust in his chair, on his clothes, behind his teeth, until his arms and back ached from the bending down and stretching up, until his head hurt from the substance abuse and mental overload.  Then the answer would be there.  Charlie would hand it over to whoever had asked for it, or to Larry to verify it if no one had.  And he'd sleep for thirty-six hours straight.

Of all the Mathematicians Larry knew at Charlie's level, he was the least obsessive in that way and Larry was glad.  Because of all the Mathematicians he knew, he loved Charlie the most.

"Tell you what, Larry, you double-check my findings and I'll buy you tea and those cheese scones you love."

"You have a deal, Charles."  He grinned at the idea of such a reward and followed Charlie inside when he pushed open the door to his classroom, walking right into him.

"No… oh no, no… no no no no no…."

Larry didn't have to ask what was wrong, he could see it.  And it was one of the most tragic things he could think of.  He knew without seeing it the emotion that would be on Charlie's face, tears blossoming instantly in eyes that were capable of cracking his heart.  He reached out, fingers curling around his friend's shoulders and looked around them.  Every blackboard had been wiped clean.  A week's worth of work - over one hundred twenty five hours of Charlie's sweat and stress infused with his need to help Don, his passion for his consulting work.

"God, Charlie… who would do this?"  Charlie's head moved slowly, side to side, and Larry squeezed slightly tighter.  "I'm sorry…."  It was pointless, useless, but he said it anyway.  Then he said something more useful, more urgent.  "What do you remember of it?  Right now, pick up the chalk and write everything you remember.  Start at the end and work backwards."

#

What Don saw when he tapped on the open door of Charlie's classroom wasn't what he'd expected to see.  Boards full of gobbledegook in chalk; numbers, equations, symbols he didn't even know the meaning of.  Today there were a few lines of it on the centre board.  Charlie was naturally a force of nature when he worked, leaping from one place to another, chalk in hand, adding to a dozen or more of the mathematical lines in no discernable sequence.  Today he was sitting at one of the desks, elbows on the surface, head in his hands.  And Larry was sitting on the desk close by, feet up on a chair, hand hovering above Charlie's hunched back.

Concern for his brother immediately overrode his need for the information he hoped Charlie would have.

"Hey, guys… what's goin' on?"

Larry looked at him with an odd mix of sadness and warning.  Charlie looked up too, and Don could see the red of emotional stress around his eyes.  Immediately he was talking, "Don… I'm so sorry…."

"What?  What's happenin'?"  He couldn't keep himself from looking around and a second later his heart began to sink.  "The algorithm you were working on for us…."

"Someone wiped the blackboards.  All of the blackboards."

Larry's words started alarm bells going off in his brain.  The gentle hint of something warred in his mind with the disappointment and frustration at losing his brother's work on their current priority case.  But he knew his job well enough not to ignore the quieter notions that infiltrated the louder suspicions in his head.  "Someone did that.  Could it have been an accident?"

Charlie shook his head.  "No one around here would ever erase anything, never mind everything.  They know not to." 

Don could hear the sorrow in his voice, the apology he realised would be there for weeks, maybe months.  It would tear him apart very, very slowly to hear it.  "It's okay, Charlie.  This isn't your fault."

"I should have… marked it as important."

"But you just said no one would have erased it."

"Clearly someone did!"

"Maybe it wasn't an accident."

Both Larry and Charlie frowned at him like the idea hadn't crossed their minds, wouldn't ever have crossed their minds.  Two brilliant, brilliant minds.  Don smiled to himself just for a moment. 

"You're saying you think someone wiped Charlie's work on purpose?"

"Yeah."  Don pulled a chair up and moved it until he could sit close to his brother, leaned forward and momentarily touched his forehead to Charlie's.  "I think someone might be acting out some kind of grudge against you."  He sat up at the same time as his brother.  "Someone called in an anonymous tip to the LAPD yesterday that got you picked up for firing a weapon you didn't have.  They don't arrest people for speeding…."

"You were arrested?"

Don glanced at Larry, then at Charlie.  Charlie told Larry everything, always had done.  He knew that too, apparently, saw the anomaly in his own behaviour when he said, "I didn't want to talk about it."

"Now this?"

"Don… I'm a Mathematician.  What possible grudge could anyone hold against me?"

He smiled, "Don't sell yourself short, bro'.  You've worked with the NSA, CIA, FBI… Homeland Security?"  Charlie shook his head.  "Like it or not, we make enemies.  Most of them don't bother with personal revenge but now and again…."

"Don't you think the kind of people I've helped catch would be more likely to come at me with a rifle rather than an eraser?"

Despite the humour underlying the question, Don inwardly shuddered, not wanting to think of the danger he put his younger brother in regularly, not liking the idea of someone targeting him.  But Charlie was right, these things were petty, upsetting but not in themselves likely to hurt him.

"Apart from not appreciating that idea, I think you're probably right."

Charlie smiled at him with a ridiculously huge amount of thanks and it took him a moment to work out what it was for.  He filed it away for future reference and squeezed Charlie's arm.  "I'm getting CSI out here - they'll take every board eraser in this room to our crime lab for fingerprinting."  He caught the expression on Larry's face.  "I'm serious.  And while I can't really justify putting an agent on you," Charlie rolled his eyes in a 'well, duh' response, "I don't want you going anywhere alone.  Have Larry or Amita with you whenever you're not teaching and I'll pick you up later, take you home."

"Don, come on… that's utterly unworkable."

"No, it isn't," Larry interrupted, "it's perfectly workable.  I don't have classes until tomorrow lunch…."

"Larry, don't you start.  I don't need protection from someone who calls the cops on me and wipes my blackboards clean.  No offence but I'm not sure my life's in danger here…."

"Escalation, Charlie," Don didn't want to scare his little brother but he didn't want to wind up investigating his death either.  The idea made him feel sick.

"I won't let him out of my sight," Larry promised, and Don nodded, having no choice but to trust in his instincts that escalation from wiping blackboards to physical attack in one or two moves probably wasn't very probable.  A part of him wanted to ask Charlie for the numbers, but he didn't.  Instead he nodded.

"If anything else happens, I want to know about it immediately," he instructed.  "I mean, anything out of the ordinary."

"I'll have your information for you as soon as possible." 

Don waved his second apology away.  "Don't worry about it.  When you can, but this isn't your fault, okay?"

"Okay."

One last squeeze of Charlie's arm, and Don rose.  "A CSI will be here within the hour, don't touch anything until it's been dusted."

As he left the room, he heard Larry's voice, "My apartment got burgled when I was an undergrad, I couldn't even get the police out to me.  Someone wipes your blackboards and you get the FBI's crime lab investigating?"  There was a smile in the words.

Don hesitated, and caught Charlie's response, "You don't have a senior FBI agent for a big brother."

He carried the warm and fuzzy feelings inside him for the rest of the day, counterbalancing the worry.

#

Don closed the front door behind him and found his dad on the couch reading the paper.  "Hey, Dad."  There was no other sound.  "Charlie home?"

"Yeah.  He and Larry are in the garage.  Listen, Don, you know I have lots of city maps, if you want me to lend you one to your own apartment…?"

He smirked as he draped his coat over the back of the armchair and Alan smirked back.  He loosened his tie and then, on second thoughts, removed it and dropped it onto his coat.  He was staying the night, just in case Charlie needed him.  No point in fooling himself any further than he already was doing.

They were in the garage, but they weren't working, they were playing air hockey.  As soon as Don walked in Charlie looked up, looked as guilty as hell, like a kid caught not doing his homework, and Larry scored his first point of the game.

He pre-emptied his brother's third or fourth apology of the day.  "It's okay, you don't have to work twenty-four hours a day for me, Charlie."

"Did you get anything back yet from the six hundred and twenty three prints they lifted from my classroom?"

There was a mix of amusement and frustration in the question and Don knew why.  The crime scene investigators David had sent over from the bureau had been clueless as to what they were looking for but well aware of why they were looking, so they'd been very, very thorough; the classroom had been left covered in purple powder, powder Charlie and Larry and anyone else who'd been unlucky enough to brush passed it had covering their clothing right about now.

Charlie had definitely changed his clothes.  He'd come in and showered by the looks of his still-damp hair, pulled on a white T-shirt and thrown his red shirt over it, the one Don really, really liked.  Shaking that thought, he pointed back at the house with his thumb.  "I'm gonna cook steak, if you're hungry."

Larry's eyes lit up, and Charlie scored a goal while his back was turned.

#

After a short argument that ended with Larry promising to pick Charlie up on his way to CalSci in the morning, he left the young Eppes in the safe charge of his elder brother.  Alan went to bed an hour later, switching off the main light, muttering something about electricity bills despite them not being addressed to him any longer, pointedly telling his sons they both looked like they needed some sleep, leaving them in front of the modern cowboy movie playing out on the television.

Don was sprawled on the sofa, one arm looped behind his head.  Charlie had curled himself into one of the armchairs, a foot pulled up to the cushion, just his toes visible, poking out from the denim.  For once he didn't have a book in his hands, his attention was on the television, overly intelligent eyes following the action.  Don could watch him if he turned his head just slightly, but every time he did, Charlie would look over at him and smile.  One of those smiles brought to mind what he'd been thinking about earlier in the day, standing in the classroom.

"You know… I wouldn't… cope well, with losing you.  You do know that, don't you?"

Charlie turned his head, tipping it to one side and regarding Don curiously.  "Wouldn't cope well?"

Don took a deep breath.  "If anything happened to you… it would cripple me.  But if anything happened to you because of your work for me… it would kill me, Charlie."

The look on his brother's face was worth the difficulty he'd had in stringing together the words.  Charlie seemed to melt, his whole body at once slouching and reaching out to Don.  For once in his life, he wanted to hug his sibling.  He dropped his feet to the carpet and beckoned Charlie over.  Without a doubt he hesitated, and that cracked Don's heart open just a little more.  Then he moved, and Don wrapped his arms around him as he dropped into the sofa, head falling naturally against Don's shoulder.  Resting one cheek on the silky, curly black hair, he did something he hadn't ever done; he cuddled his baby brother.

He felt one arm curl around his waist, hand settling at his hip, and a pulse of heat throbbed once in his cock.  But this wasn't about the other, private, never spoken of part of their relationship.  This was about the love he felt for his brother, the love that had been so many things throughout his life, but never this strong. 

After a couple of minutes, Charlie turned in his arms, settled with his back against him, holding Don's hand where it fell against his stomach, and without a word he turned his attention back to the movie.  Don too looked back at the action on the screen, but he wasn't watching it.  It felt good having Charlie so close, relaxed and happy against him.  They'd never been physical like this, and the irony of being able to jerk his brother off but not simply hug him had never been lost on Don.  He breathed in the apple smell of shampoo and the sandalwood of shower gel.

He heard Alan moving about upstairs, going from his bedroom across the hall to the bathroom.  Charlie must have heard it too but he didn't tense, didn't move.  This was just two brothers starting to work out a lifetime of conflict.  Nothing more; Don was keeping his body's reaction to having Charlie so close and warm to himself.  Not that Charlie would mind, but he didn't want this to descend into sex and the idea of what he did want, the growing, gnawing need to make love to Charlie, was terrifying.  It would be a turn from the usual hand jobs in the dark, looking down into those big brown eyes as he buried himself in his brother - something else they'd never, ever done.  A line they'd never crossed.

They watched the rest of the movie, Don to varying degrees, splitting his attention between the film and Charlie. 

The credits gave way to adverts, he tuned them out, murmuring into the black head, "Why is it I'm comfortable with the idea of sex with you, but not the idea of making love to you?"

Smoothly, Charlie turned in his arms, bending his knees to rest against Don's thigh.  "I'm your brother," his words were nothing more than a whisper, and the sounds went straight to Don's dick.  "Hand jobs are what we used to do when we were kids - innocent fumblings and youthful experimentation.  Anything more and it's… it's incest, Donny, no denying it."

The 'I' word wilted his enthusiasm slightly, but it was impossible to ignore the adoration in those deep, dark eyes.  Combing his fingers through tangled curls, getting them caught up just behind Charlie's ear, Don felt as if he was looking at his brother for the first time; certain he was with these eyes.  In his head he knew they shouldn't start this.  It was a hole so deep he knew he'd never be able to see the bottom, no matter how long it went on for or how quickly they stopped.  Charlie deserved better, deserved more.  Because if they started this, they'd never stop.  And nothing would ever be the same again for either of them.

"It's illegal," Charlie whispered.  "And you're an FBI agent."

But all these sensible, grown up arguments faded into insignificance against the challenge playing in Charlie's eyes, the ghost of the smile touching his lips, the slight movement of his head against Don's fingers as he gently tightened his grip just a little in the unruly hair.  And finally he couldn't hold back his own smile, his own challenge.

"Want to?"

Charlie chuckled.  "It's immoral too.  And I'm a…."

Don silenced him, bringing their mouths together - still hesitant at first then moving, lips parting, tongues battling for a first taste.  The creak of the landing floorboards made them snap apart, Don's hand falling to his own leg as Charlie shifted quickly to kneel up on the sofa cushion next to him.  Alan appeared at the bottom of the stairs, crossing into the kitchen without even looking up.  They waited, heard a glass taken from the cupboard and filled with water, watched their father take the return path back to the stairs, only then stopping to glance back at the quiet television and his sons on the sofa.

"You both all right?"

Don nodded at the sleepy question.  "We're fine, Dad, just talkin'."

"Good.  It's about time."

Then he was gone, and after a couple of seconds they heard the tell tale creak of the floorboards.  On a deep breath Don let out a nervous laugh and glanced apologetically at Charlie.

"Maybe not while Dad's in."

"Dad's always in."

The slightly peevish, completely disappointed tone of his brother's words gave him an entirely inappropriate flush of pride.  "Come back to my place tomorrow." 

"You have a place of your own?"

Don ignored the familiar jibe.  "Larry's picking you up in the morning, I'll collect you from the campus tomorrow evening."

"That's… going to your place with intent."

"You don't want to?"

Charlie glanced away just for a moment, but then the challenge was back.  He nodded.  "Yeah, I want to."  Leaning forward, he risked another touch to Don's lips, and suddenly he understood Charlie's hesitation.

"Want to go upstairs and jerk off?"

The grin was worth every second of risk they'd be taking, not that it wasn't a risk they hadn't taken a hundred times before.  Don's room was the other end of the house to Alan's, and they'd learnt over the years to be very, very quiet.  When he finally came inside Charlie, he wanted to hear his brother scream, and that wasn't something he wanted to ever, ever have to explain to their father.

#

Don hoped to God he didn't look as guilty as he felt, staring at the still-sleeping Charlie before he pulled the door to his room closed, coming face to face with Alan heading for the bathroom.

He thought about keeping quiet, then saw Charlie's bedroom door was open and even with the bed in its usual messy state, it was obvious by the un-drawn curtains no one had slept in there overnight.  "Charlie's still asleep," he stated quietly.

"He slept with you?"  Don nodded.  "Been a while since he's done that.  Is he all right?"

When they were kids Charlie had used to climb into his bed so they could touch, he'd fall asleep there and the idea that something was wrong when Charlie slept in Don's bed was infused into their father's consciousness.  He smiled sympathetically, nodded, said quietly, "It's been a difficult couple of weeks."

"I was going to speak to you about that.  You know, it's not good to give such heavy cases to an obsessive like Charlie.  I've said it before, Donny, your path shouldn't be his."

"I know, Dad."  He kept his voice quiet.  "I do try to keep the worst from him - he picked up a file from the abduction case when he was delivering some analysis to David and wouldn't let it go." It had scared him a little….

Alan's hand gripped his arm.  "Charlie had a good childhood, Don.  He was a happy boy.  Yes, there were bullies but you were always there for him.  It's just that he feels things very strongly, he gets caught up in people's problems because he thinks he can solve everything.  Before he started working for you he gave himself completely to his Math.  Now he's trying to solve the riddles of human behaviour too, and he's doing it for you."

Don sighed softly, refusing to be drawn on this one again.  Yet the reflection of his starter-for-ten with Charlie the previous night in this conversation was clear to him.  "I won't let anything happen to him, Dad.  Don't worry.  I gotta go."


Two hours later Charlie was in the kitchen, standing with his hand in the cutlery drawer, blindly searching for a spoon while he stared at the Cheerios in his bowl, counting those he could see, estimating the number he couldn't.  Moving his fingers to the left he suddenly felt a sickening cut and pulled his hand back, sucking the blood from his index finger.  When he went for a spoon again he looked what he was doing, hearing his Dad's reprimand in his head from across the years.

Taking his rapidly soaking cereal into the living room he dropped into an armchair, opened a book on the wooden arm and started to read.  When the phone rang, he stuck his spoon in his mouth and picked up the wireless receiver.

"Uhhu?"

"Charles?"

Taking the spoon from his mouth, dropping it in his lap, he swallowed his cereals.  "Larry.  Sorry."

"I'm sorry."  He sounded it.  "The car won't start."

"What?"

"The car, Charles, won't start."

Suddenly Larry was making sense.  "Have you called Triple-A?"

"Yes.  But they're busy this morning, and as I'm at home it's going to be over an hour."

He glanced at his watch.  He had a lecture at nine, and already it was five after eight.  "Oh.  It's okay, I'll cycle in."

"I think you should call Don."  He rolled his eyes.  Inside his head, the previous day was split into two; events in his classroom and events right here, last night.  The gripping fear he'd felt on seeing the boards wiped clean hadn't anything to do with the possibility of someone being after him and everything to do with how badly he'd let his brother down.  Last night had eased the sick feeling that had been crawling around in his stomach for the rest of the day.  This morning the blackboards felt like nothing more than an accident.

"I'll be fine, Larry.  I think I can cycle to CalSci without getting into trouble."

#

Smiling happily at the complex series of completed equations on the white board, Charlie hit the large, square 'Print' button and stared out at the pouring rain.  He'd been lucky not to get soaked through on the way in this morning, the weather had turned almost the moment he'd locked up his bike and he'd high-tailed it into the building.  After his nine a.m. lecture he'd found an empty classroom with a printable white-board and had set to work on re-creating what he'd done for Don over the last week.

Pr r equals N over r N -r pie to r 1-pie to the power N-r

Now there were eight print-outs pinned to the walls of the classroom and the final one was falling from the printer.  In a day he'd managed to recall most of the solutions to the problems that had kept him awake for four nights out of five, he'd managed to sift through the dead-ends he'd already been down and for the most part had stayed on the right path throughout.

With human behaviour N and r aren't infinitely variable but they are more variable than Math would theoretically allow

Finally he had an answer for Don.  Don….  Memory and realisation struck him.  Don had been supposed to pick him up over two hours ago.  He'd been lost in his work but he checked his cell and there were no missed calls or text messages.  Maybe, like him, his brother had gotten caught up in his work, lost track of time.  Or maybe he'd changed his mind.

Human behaviour can be modelled but the models are complex.

And Don… Don is complicated.

Signing softly to himself, he watched the rain fall in front of the white lights in the quad.  If Don had changed his mind, would he be disappointed…?  Possibly.  Probably.  He loved the feel of his brother's hands on him, always had done, and he knew that even if they didn't take it further it wouldn't change what happened between them on an irregular basis.  It was just that… to take it further, to be that much closer, would have been… incredible.  His life had never followed the usual rules.  Their parents had brought he and Don up as normally as they'd possibly been able to, but all his life he'd sought Don's approval and love because for much of it he'd thought he didn't have either.

"I've always loved you, Charlie."

The printer beeped completion and he tore the large sheet carefully from the roll, laying it out on the desk, going around the room and taking down all the print-outs, laying them one on top of the other before folding them carefully and tucking them into his rucksack.  Putting on his coat, knowing he was about to get soaked to the skin and looking forward to a steaming hot shower when he got to the house, he shrugged the waterproof pack onto his shoulders and switched off the lights as he left the classroom. 

He walked as much of his way through adjoining buildings as he could before ending up at the door he'd dived in through that morning.  His bike was only meters from there, not that it really mattered as he had a good half-hour journey home in the torrential rain.  But still.  Opening the door, he braced himself and ran for it.

He noticed it as he bent to unlock the chain, rainwater already dripping from his hair; the buckled front wheel.  It looked as if someone had literally tried to fold it in half. A glance at the back wheel and he saw that the same had been done to the back.  Suddenly he felt exposed, looking around him, remembering vividly the sniper bullet that had almost killed him, the sound of the shot, the car window exploding where his brain and skull should have been if Don hadn't shouted, David hadn't knocked him to the ground.  Instead of a bullet to the head he had scrapes, cuts and bruises from his landing on the concrete.  No one around to save him now. 

He ran back to the shelter of the building faster than he'd run this morning, closing the door behind him and leaning against it for a second before he moved away from the frosted glass panes and hurried around the corner to lean his shoulder against the solid wall of the corridor, drop his rucksack from his back and pull out his cell phone to call his brother.

#

Don rubbed his eyes and glanced up through the light reflections of two glass partitions to the window beyond.  It was dark outside.  There was something about that fact which was bothering him.  Something he should have done, some place he should have been before it got dark.

Charlie.  Shit!

Touching the 'off' button at the base of his PC's flat screen monitor he pushed his chair back and grabbed his jacket from where he'd dumped it on the desk when they'd come in from picking up the latest in a line of suspects good for the Doberman abduction.  The abductees were dead, he was depressingly sure of it.  His aim was to find the kidnappers before they did it again.

"Don!"

He turned, "David… I gotta go," he shrugged his coat on, "I was supposed to be somewhere…."

His hands went up.  "Sorry, Don, but you gotta hear this."

Taking a deep breath he nodded.  "Okay."  He gave David his full attention.

"The fingerprints the lab took from Charlie's classroom?  They found a match."

Safe to assume, by David's tone, that it wasn't a match to Charlie, or Larry, or Amita, of any of the hundreds of students and lecturers, or them for that matter… "Jake Lloyd."

He thought the name should mean something.  "You put Malcolm Lloyd away for armed robbery last year.  Jake's his older brother."

The connection was obvious.  "Now Jake's going after Charlie."

"Because he's your brother."

Pulling his cell from his pocket he stared just for a moment at the message waiting for him on the small coloured screen.

1 missed call from Charlie at 21:56

Clearing that, he saw the follow up message,

You have 1 voice mail

He checked his Answerphone, dialling the number, wondering if it had always taken so long to connect.  "You have one message.  Recorded today at nine fifty-six."  He glanced at his watch - just a couple of minutes ago.  There was a pause, then Charlie's voice.

"Don, it's me."  Charlie sounded… disturbed.  "I don't know if this is something or not but I cycled in this morning because Larry's car wouldn't start.  I went out to cycle home and… and I guess you're busy and I'm sorry, it's probably nothing, but someone's buckled both my wheels."

He'd heard enough - he pressed # for call return and told David to find Colby, to get an address for Jake Lloyd and to get over there.  Starting towards the exit himself he waited for the call to connect and then what felt like hours for Charlie to answer.

"Don?"

"Charlie!  Where are you?"

"CalSci.  I left a message…."

"I mean, where exactly are you?"  He pressed the elevator call button, twenty or so times.

"In the science block - Larry's giving a late lecture on Riemannian Geometry and Spatial Distortion.  I was going to wait for him and get a lift home."

"Good.  Good idea."  Finally the elevator doors opened and he stepped inside.  "I want you to get to the lecture theatre and stay there.  I'm on my way."

"Don, what's going on?"

"I'll explain when I see you."  He could hear his brother's footsteps echoing in the corridor on the other end of the call.

"Should I be worried?"

He didn't want to say yes.  "Just tell me when you get there.  I'm stayin' on the line until you get there."

"Don… you're really scaring me."

He knew that.  "I know, Charlie, I'm sorry.  It's gonna be okay.  Gotta trust me on this, okay?"

"Okay."  He sounded like he was twelve again all of a sudden and Don felt a surge of guilt.  "Did you… did you change your mind about tonight?"

"No."  It came out too fast, but if he'd hesitated Charlie might have got the wrong idea.  Had he changed his mind..?  "No, I just… I got caught up in something."

"It's okay if you did."

"I swear, Charlie."  He stepped out of the elevator into the underground garage.

"I'm here, Don."  His voice had dropped to a quiet murmur, convincing Don he was outside Larry's lecture theatre.  They'd all suffered at the wrath of Larry the Lecturer for talking in the vicinity of one of his classes.

"Right.  Stay there.  I'll find you."

"Science block, second floor, lecture theatre D.  And Don, try to be quiet when you arrive."

"I will.  Promise."

"You'd better.  You know how Larry…"

"Yeah, I know."

Don ended the call reluctantly and unlocked the car.  David and Colby were already pulling out of the underground parking garage and he followed them, overtaking at the first opportunity and heading for CalSci, pushing the boundaries of safe driving in a built up area to get to the campus.

He still hadn't put what had been happening to Charlie together with a revenge trip in his own mind.  The fake call to the cops, wiping his blackboards, bending his bike wheels….  Malcolm Lloyd had been a violent man, convicted of five armed robberies, one in which four people had been seriously injured.  All these petty annoyances didn't made sense when they were compared to that.  One hadn't been any worse than the next, no escalation.  Charlie admittedly had sounded more rattled tonight than yesterday - had something else happened he hadn't mentioned?  If Jake Lloyd was after revenge, why not just get straight to the point?

Had CalSci always been this far?

#

"…console myself by telling myself that there was at least one person in the room who understood what I was saying, only to find out he wasn't actually listening."

Charlie blinked, still ringing water from his hair.  He'd stripped his coat off as quietly as possible when he'd arrived but his jeans were still wet through and there were puddles in his sneakers.  He glanced up at Larry.  It wasn't that his mind wondering off topic was a rare phenomenon, but usually it wondered from one Maths problem to another, or from one problem to a solution, or from a solution to a different problem.  Something was wrong; he was in real danger if the tone of Don's voice had been anything to go by, and not just these things that had been happening to him.  He looked up.  "Sorry."

Larry seated himself in the row in front of Charlie, crossed his arms along the back of the chair and touched his chin to the back of his hand.  "Have I ever told you… when you're sad, it clouds over the sun?"  Charlie stared at his friend, uncertain if he'd actually heard that right.  "Poetic, I know, but you, Charles, you're a light in the dark, you're one of my life's pure pleasures and when something or someone upsets you it unbalances me too."

"I'm fine, Larry."  He wasn't sure how to address the rest of what his friend had said because before he could address it he'd have to interpret it.  He explained about his bike, and that he wasn't worried about what Don had said on the phone, more about the tone of his brother's voice as he'd said it.  By the time he'd finished talking a mile a minute, explaining with his hands as fervently as he did with his words, he realised that, by coming into Larry's lecture room, he'd brought with him whatever danger was following him.  He stood.  "I have to get out of here."

"Oh no, you're doing what Don told you to.  You're staying here until he arrives."

"What if someone tries to… hurt me and you're caught in the firing line…?"

Reaching out, Larry grabbed the sleeve of Charlie's shirt, pulling him back.  "Stay here.  No one's going to be firing anything at you in here."

Charlie sat back down hard.  "Very reassuring."

"I know you're already one of the most protected Mathematicians in the country, but whenever you need me, you know I'm here for you."

"I wouldn't risk your life."

"But I would.  For you."  So sincere….  Charlie was surprised to feel tears prickling his eyes.

"Larry…."  But whatever words he thought he might find were waved away.

"Don't.  You start, then I'll start and when Don arrives he'll think we just broke up."

Charlie felt the smile tugging at his lips.  "Thanks."

"Hey."  Larry shrugged.  "Don't mention it."

#

Don felt a surge of relief at the sight of Larry and Charlie sitting in the back rows of the lecture theatre.  He couldn't resist a squeeze of his brother's shoulder.  "You okay?"

"Yeah."  Why didn't he believe that completely?  "What's going on?"

"The lab matched a print from your classroom to the brother of a guy I put away for armed robbery last year."

Dark eyes widened, and he caught a flash of worry move over Larry's face too.  "You think this guy's coming after me?"

"We don't know, Charlie.  But all this stuff that's been happening… I don't want to risk it.  I'm taking you home, and I'm putting an agent on you until we catch this guy."  He glanced at Larry, saw the concern etched into his face.  "Don't worry, Lar, nothin's gonna happen."  Reaching for Charlie's shoulder, squeezing it gently, he directed him to his feet.  "Come on, Chuck."

"I swear, Donny, you call me that again…."

Pushing open the door, he stepped out into the corridor, checking left and right before allowing Larry and Charlie out of the room.  They walked together in silence to the stairs and descended to the ground floor. Outside the rain was still lashing down.

"I'll send someone over to collect your bike," he told his brother belatedly as he followed the two men along to the building entrance.  "Speaking of which, what happened to the car this morning, Larry?"

Apparently his question reminded his selectively absent-minded brother about why he'd had to bike here in the first place.  "Yeah, Larry.  And do you need a lift?"

"No, I'm fine, honestly.  The Triple-A guy said some thing about something being loosened in the engine.  It's not a strength of mine, the combustion engine."

Charlie laughed, one of the most up-lifting sounds in Don's world.  "You?  I thought you'd be an expert on the combustion engine."  He pushed open the heavy wooden door and the cold night air rushed in.

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just thought…."

Something caught in Don's brain and he stopped.  "Wait.  You said something had been loosened in the engine?  Or something was loose in the engine?"

Larry stared at him.  Then nodded with certainty.  "Loosened.  Definitely loosened.  I remember thinking it was odd…."

"Charlie, get back in here!"

Too late.  Jake Lloyd stepped out of the wet shadows, locked one arm around Charlie's neck and rested a blade at the base of his throat.  Larry took a step to one side as Don approached.  "One more inch and I'll take his fucking head off, I swear, Eppes."

Don raised his hands just slightly from his sides, making eye contact with Charlie, hoping he could reassure without words.  "It's me you're angry at, Jake, let him go."

Smirking, Jake shook his head.  "Get rid of the gun."

Don lifted it from his holster and tossed it to one side.  "This won't accomplish anything."

"It'll make me feel a lot godammed better."

Glancing from Lloyd to his terrified brother's face, he could see Charlie physically trying to hold absolutely still, trying to control his breathing even as his pulse rate soared.  "I swear, you hurt him I'll kill you."

"You won't kill me, Eppes.  You don't have the balls.  You'll arrest me, take me in and some soft judge'll listen to my heart wrenching sob story about having my brother sent to jail and the separation pushing me over the edge."

Slowly Don shook his head.  "Not a chance.  You hurt Charlie and you won't see the inside of a holding cell never mind a court room."

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Larry, hidden from Jake's view by the other door, bend down slowly and pick up his discarded weapon.  He didn't even know if Larry had ever held a gun before, never mind fired one, but a distraction would be helpful.

"How's Malcolm going to feel, Jake?  If I kill you he won't have an older brother any more.  You'd be hurting him as much as you hurt me."  Jake's arm seemed to spasm, tighten briefly around Charlie's neck as Charlie stiffened, taking in a sudden, quick breath, biting back a squeak of pain as the blade momentarily pressed deeper into his skin.  "Please, just let him go.  Then I'll arrest you and I'll make sure you get to see Malcolm, Jake, you have my word.  Just let him go."  Don took a step forward. 

"Stay back!"  LLoyd took a step back and down, dragging Charlie with him, almost losing his footing on the wet steps and a moment later, Charlie did exactly that.  His feet went out from under him, his weight falling heavily on Lloyd's arm and the blade at his throat.  In that same second, Larry stepped out from behind the door, arms raised, gun held like a pro, and shouted,

"Let him go or I shoot!"

It was a double distraction, as Jake pressed the knife harder against Charlie's throat while at the same time unconsciously backing away from the madman with the gun.  Don didn't miss the opportunity.  He closed the gap and grabbed Jake's wrist, pulling the knife from Charlie's flesh.  "Charlie, drop!"  For once his brother did exactly as he was told, hitting the stone steps hard as Don spun a surprised Jake on the spot and trapped his arm behind his back, the blade clattering harmlessly from his hand.  Holding him in that position, he got one cuff on Lloyd's wrist, reached around for the other.

Jake made a break for it, tripping down the last two steps, running across the quad.  Don yelled after him, took off, leaping the steps, landing easily.  He needn't have run.  He saw Jake fly round the corner, and a hammered heartbeat later heard the squeal of tyres on wet stone and two voices yelling.  Two seconds after that he saw Jake on the ground, face turned from a shallow puddle, David over him, one knee in the small of his back, fastening the second handcuff securely.

Turning, he looked across at Larry crouched on the steps, one hand pressed to Charlie's throat, the other around his shoulders.  Comforting Don's brother with all the love Don felt right then, at that moment.  All he wanted to do was get Charlie home, to lie with him behind a locked door and hold him as he slept.  So strong was that need, it took his breath away. 

He crossed back across the quad, sat one step down from Charlie and put his arm loosely around his brother's waist, asking Larry to move his hand so that he could see the wound, and all he could see was blood.  He pressed it back firmly, glancing at Larry to make sure he was okay with that.  Of course he was.  It was Larry.  And Charlie.  So often they were inseparable.

"Medics are on their way," Colby informed them, jogging over while David handed Jake Lloyd to the newly arrived LAPD.  All Don could do was wait, and take care of his brother, raising up on his knees to meet large, wide, frightened eyes, easing his arm around soaking wet shoulders, replacing Larry's, he eased Charlie against him, tucked him under his chin and held on even as it poured with rain around them.

#

Opening his eyes to see black curls on the white pillow in front of him, Don huffed a warm breath across his brother's neck before he leaned in to kiss a broad shoulder.  Muttering something nonsensical, Charlie shifted back to inadvertently rub his ass against Don's morning erection.  Opening his mouth against hot skin, he bit gently.

Rolling over onto his back, into his brother's arms, Charlie lifted his head slightly for an open-mouthed kiss Don was more than happy to share.  He ghosted his fingers over the small dressing hiding the two butterfly stitches at the base of his throat, dropping his head to ghost a kiss against the gauze.

"My fault, Charlie."

Curls brushed against his face and he stole another kiss.  This was his fault too - this thing they definitely shouldn't have been indulging in.  Charlie wouldn't have it.  Shaking his head he ran a sure hand down to Don's ass and slid it between them.

"I'm not the innocent party in this, Don."  Neither of them were.  But here, like this, without the world looking in, it didn't seem to matter.  Behind closed doors was right, and it was where this would forever have to stay.  Don found he really didn't care.  Not with Charlie's hand doing what it was doing.  Not with Charlie looking at him the way he was doing.  The world could go screw itself.  This was theirs, and no one was going to take it from them.





fin

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