Numb3rs: In Cars (Don/Charlie) mild R
Title: In Cars
Author: CPWatcher
Rating: mild R, if that.
Pairing: Don/Charlie
Warning: Incest, just minor touching/kissing and allusion to sex.
Feedback: Always nice.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Beta: Thanks to falconoflight for looking this over for me.
Author’s Note: Written for the numb3rsficathon . My prompt was Oswald Kittner, Suburban, Don’s apartment.
In Cars
Don parked his Suburban in the driveway of the Craftsman house, surprised to find Oswald Kitner sitting on the front porch. Taking off his sunglasses and hanging them on the neck of his black t-shirt as he exits the SUV, Don greets the younger man. “Oswald, how’s it going?”
“Agent Eppes, ah Don, not bad. You?”
Smiling, Don answers “Hanging in there. What you doing hanging around out here?”
“Oh, Charlie was going to take me out driving.” Don arched an eyebrow in question. “Lessons. Driving lessons. I don’t have my license, just my learner’s permit, which expired, so I had to renew it. Anyway, Charlie offered to give me lessons so I can take the test.”
Don chuckled, “Sort of like the blind leading the blind, don’t you think?”
Oswald laughed as well. “Yeah, well, riding a skateboard around CalSci is fine, but riding one *to* CalSci, not so much. Charlie offered, and I couldn’t refuse. I need the practice.”
Opening the door and ushering Oswald inside, Don asked, “So where is mister driver’s education, anyway?”
Oswald looked down at his watch. “Late. Again. I’d say he’s still at school.”
“Late again? How many times has he been late?” Don questioned.
Oswald smiled sheepishly and looked away. “Well not so much late as cancelled, and three times.” Don frowns and Oswald quickly tries to clarify. “It’s not a problem. I know he’s busy. I’m good.”
Don pulled his cell phone off his belt holster and dials Charlie’s cell.
“Don, hey,” Charlie answered. “You got a case?”
“No, Charlie. Where are you?” The ‘and why aren’t you here blowing me like you’re supposed to be’ left unsaid.
“Oh. Oh, good. Yeah, I’m at CalSci. Ah, Larry and I were finally making some headway with this problem…”
Don interrupted. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something today?”
“Doing something? Like what?” Charlie asked.
“Driving lessons. Oswald.” Don replied.
“Oh! That was today. Shit. Is Oswald there? Where are you? Are you at the house? Shit. I completely forgot again.”
“Calm down, Chuck. Yeah, Oswald’s here. I’m at the house. How long you gonna be?” Don smiled at Kittner and shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, man, we’ve just worked out some variables, and…”
“Look, do your math. I’ll take Oswald out.”
“What? You’ll take him?” Charlie sounded skeptical.
“What? I taught you, remember,” Don stated, huffily.
“Yeah, you tried. As I recall, Mom was the one who eventually taught me to drive.”
“That’s because she had the patience of a saint. Oswald has got to be better at this than you were, by a long shot.”
“Ok, if you’re sure you can handle it. I can leave…”
“Charlie, I taught defensive driving to agents at Quantico. I think I can handle it.”
Don closed his phone and eyed Oswald, who is smiling shakily and shifting on his feet.
“So, Agent Eppes, you’re going to teach me to drive?”
“Yep. I’ll take you out a few times, make sure you’re comfortable, and when you’re ready, we’ll get your license.”
“Sweet.” Oswald beamed.
Don smiles in return as he goes to grab a beer, thinking after the driving fiasco that was teaching Charlie, how bad could teaching Oswald to drive be?
~#~#~#~#~#~
It was bad. Really bad. Teaching Oswald how to maneuver an 8600 pound vehicle, without turning it into an uncontrollable weapon of mass destruction was a hell of a challenge. Don had been trying for three weeks, taking Oswald out first just up and down the streets in front of the house. But when parked cars inched closer to the endangered species list, Don opted for using the enclosed and completely empty FBI defensive driving course. However, that option came one ticket too late.
Sitting in the darkness of his apartment, nursing a beer and a headache, Don listened as Charlie smirked.
“He got a ticket? How did you let him get a ticket?”
Don glared. “I didn’t let him get a ticket. He got it all on his own.”
“Ha ha. What did he do?”
“What didn’t he do? He ran a stop sign, drove up an embankment and hit a mailbox.” Don rubbed his face in exasperation. “$300 to get the passenger side mirror replaced. Hell, you weren’t even this bad.”
Charlie straddled Don’s lap and kissed his brother quickly, suppressing a laugh. “I’m sure Oswald wasn’t that bad. He probably was just a little nervous, that’s all. I mean, you took him out in an SUV. The biggest damn SUV around, for that matter.”
“I should have used a tank, I’d have felt safer inside,” Don murmured, rubbing his hands up and down Charlie’s thighs.
Charlie laughed. “You just took the wrong approach, big brother.”
Don sat up quickly, nearly pushing Charlie off him. “Wrong approach? He can’t even judge stopping distances. I nearly wore the leather off the dashboard for how much I gripped it every time he screeched to a stop.”
Charlie shook his head. “I bet you I can not only teach Oswald how to drive, but do it in less time than you’ve had him out already.”
Now it was Don’s turn to smirk. “No fucking way.”
“You’ve had him for three weeks. I say I can teach him in two. Loser has to be designated dancer at Aunt Irene’s birthday party.”
Don smiled, squeezing Charlie’s ass and kissing him. “You’re on.”
~#~#~#~#~#~
Eleven days later, Don hands Oswald back his newly minted Driver’s License.
“So he passed the test, but can he drive?” Don asked.
“Oswald?” Charlie smiled as Oswald ushered Don out to Charlie’s Prius.
Don sat in the passenger seat and Charlie climbed in the back. After checking his mirrors and buckling his seat belt, Oswald backed smoothly out the driveway, merged with traffic and proceeded to drive through the neighborhood. Don was frankly surprised with how well Oswald handled the vehicle. Even his stops were no longer jerky. Upon returning back to the Craftsman’s house, with nary an incident, Don shrugged. “Well he can handle this little box, but what can he do with a real car.”
Charlie smirked and held out his hand. Don threw him the keys to the Suburban. “Shall we?”
Oswald handled the bigger vehicle surprisingly well. Don was impressed and told Oswald so. “Damn, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you, especially not with only ten days of on the road training by Charlie here.”
“Oh we only went out driving for 5 days,” Oswald replied.
“Five days? Well, where’d you learn… how’d you learn to…” Don trailed off as Charlie spoke.
“I used the chalkboard.”
“The chalkboard?”
“Yeah. Math. I plotted a few equations and…”
This time Don cut Charlie off. “Are you trying to say you taught Oswald how to drive that well using math? You’re not serious.” Don raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Charlie replied.
“Bullshit. I don’t care what you say about everything being numbers, there’s no fucking way you taught Oswald how to drive using math.”
Charlie laughed. “Oh, ye of little faith. Come, let me show you my many and mysterious ways.”
Don trailed after a laughing Charlie and Oswald out to the garage.
Inside the garage there were half a dozen chalkboards with figures of roadways, and intersections drawn on them, and each had numerous equations beneath them.
“No. You want me to believe you taught Oswald how to drive so well with these drawings and equations?”
This time Oswald spoke, “Yeah, seriously.”
“It’s simple Don. Oswald already had the basics of driving down. He knew which was the gas, brake, etc. But when you said he had trouble judging stopping distance, I figured I’d work with him where he was having the most problems.”
“Numbers,” Don replied morosely.
“Numbers,” Charlie beamed. “More explicitly, measures of speed, velocity, and force. Using math, I helped Oswald understand the mechanics of a moving vehicle, then took him out on the road to put the mechanics to use, and viola, driver’s license.”
Don groaned, happy that Oswald got it and there was one more safe driver on the streets of LA. But clearly unhappy at being the designated dancer to a 90 year old aunt who still squeezed his cheeks when she saw him. Both sets.
~#~#~#~ end ~#~#~#~