numb3rs fic: "Prey"
Charlie doesn’t know why, but the look in his brothers eyes makes him retreat, makes him run.
There is desire in that look, a raw hunger, a need that had been unknown to Charlie.
This isn’t Don.
One moment they had been sitting on the couch in Don’s tiny appartment, the next moment Charlie stutters something about having to leave, Dad will certainly start worrying if he doesn’t leave now, and did you have a look at the clock? It’s so late!
Charlie doesn’t know why he’s running, but he knows something is about to happen, here and tonight, and he has to get away from his brother, now.
Don, who has looked at him through half-opened eyes in a room only illuminated by the faint glow of the television screen, who has touched Charlie’s curls and stroked his cheek and breathed his name ever so slowly.
Charlie is still running. It’s very dark and the streets are wet, and his ears feel supersensitive and pick up every sound, every tiny noise around him. Cars, cats landing on trashcans, someone shouting behind an opened window. Someone following him.
“Charlie! Charlie, wait!”
Of course it’s Don.
Charlie feels the urge to turn and tell him to go home, wait until it’s light outside and the atmsophere between them will have changed, or maybe just to go away, to forget whatever this is.
The younger Eppes looks around him frantically, as if someone could have heard them, but the streets are empty, there is no one there.
When Charlie hears his brother call his name once more, he suddenly turns to the right and runs through a very narrow alley between two houses as if wishing Don wouldn’t fit through, just like when they were chasing each other as kids.
Just why is he so terrified now?
Charlie dodges a trashcan, nearly knocking it over, and keeps running.
When he hears Don following him he realizes he must have come much closer now.
He suddenly feels exhausted, very much so.
He has run through the narrow corner now, and suddenly finds himself running over the pavement and onto the open street and out of the corner of his eyes he registers the flashing lights of a cabrio and oh my god -
…
“CHARLIE!”
Suddenly Don’s arms are around his waist and Charlie is pulled off his feet and falls.
He doesn’t really know whether the fall means the end of all things, whether he tripped and will die, the moment is just too short.
But the next thing Charlie hears is the angry voice of the driver and Don, oh god, Don, panting in his ear.
He tries to wriggle free, keep running, but Don grabs his wrists and pushes him down, hard.
“No, you’re staying right here!” he shouts, and even in the faint light of the streetlamps around them Charlie can clearly see how angry Don is.
Suddenly Don pulls his brother up and against his chest, making noises Charlie can’t quite place, perhaps because Don is trying to surpress them, which makes it sound like he’s choking on something.
“Don’t go,” he whispers, apparently oblivious to the fact they are still lying halfway on the street,
“Don’t you dare running from me again.”
When Don touches Charlie’s face this time, when he cups his cheek and rests one hand against his brother’s chest, Charlie doesn’t run.
He can’t, his brother’s eyes are holding him back.
Charlie is no longer able to resist those eyes, it’s like something inside of him has snapped, and the voice telling him this moment will change his entire life is right, but sounds so very distant already.
He isn’t sure for how long he will be able to stand the tension, but Don is just looking at him and stroking his cheek, so Charlie decides to speak up.
“Let’s get back,” he says quietly and stands up, shivering under Don’s intense gaze.
On the way back Charlie thinks about his brother.
How they used to play hide and seek and how it must feel like to kiss his hot and dry lips.