Honesty is the Backbone of Every True Relationship *Billy- pov, Don, Robin, D/R, A/M; PG-13/K*
Title: Honesty is the Backbone of Every True Relationship
Series: Ulysses *8/12*
Author: loozy
Characters: Billy- pov, Don, Robin, Don/ Robin, Alan/ Margaret
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary: “Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting.”
Word Count: 4322
Spoilers: after 5x23, Angels & Devils
Notes: A million tons of thanks as always go to valeriev84 and to rinkle who beta’ed this for me and helped me make this more authentic...
Prompt: # 151 Devotion
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.
“Pretty much the same that Alan said... I’m sorry, Don.”
“You knew and you never told me?”
If you tried, you would be able to cut the tension with a knife.
“You knew that I wondered about that. And you went and asked and you never told me? What the hell, Coop?”
“There are some things better left unsaid.”
Don’s eyes are as cold and dark as his voice.
“This was not one of those things... You never had the right to ask her this! How? Why? I... Coop...”
There have not been many circumstances where Don Eppes was at a loss for words and Coop was there to witness it, but this is a scene he would rather scratch from his memory right now. The thing is he does not know himself why he did it, why he did not tell Don about asking Margaret.
Maybe it was because he wanted to protect the other man. Don has been hurt by his parents’ actions before as they were unaware of the impact they had on their oldest son. From what Don told him, Margaret and Alan were good attentive parents who were just in a difficult situation. No- one knows how to deal with a gifted child, and another child just adds strain on the best of relationships.
There is only so much attention both parents can divide between the children, and at some point, the child in more need of attention draws them in more. They rely on the other child to be able to get along on his own, yet never fail to show him how much they love and appreciate him.
At least that is what he understood from what Margaret told him.
They were depending on Don being able to care for himself at times; otherwise they would not have known how to deal.
“Because Margaret asked me not to.”
She had, actually. Never said it out loud, but implied it in the way she had acted towards Billy afterwards. Apprehensive yet attentive, still in mother- mode with Don and him but there was something about her behaviour that told him that what she had told him better not come to Don’s attention.
Now, though, more than a decade later, it has, and Billy wonders what possessed him to open his big fat mouth and sprout out the truth.
He should have just shut up and let things pass by. No- one would have been the wiser.
There will be time for self- flagellation later. A lot of time, so he has to concentrate on the now, because otherwise they might not escape this unscathed.
“What? She asked you not to tell me?”
The betrayal is clear in Don’s voice, and it hurts Billy. From the look on Robin’s face, she hurts, too, for Don, while Alan’s visage is closed off.
Not good.
He is the villain in this drama at the moment, he is the one who came onto the stage after two of the good people asked him to join them, and now he has destroyed the peace.
“I don’t think she wanted to cause you pain.”
“And you thought now it wouldn’t?”
“No. I didn’t... It just came out. I don’t know why.”
“It just came out. I don’t know why.”
“You’re disgusting, Coop. Oh God, what did you have for dinner?”
Don is rolling down the driver’s window, trying to get the smell of Billy’s series of farts out of the car as quick as possible, otherwise they might just die from the fumes.
“I had the same shit as you. And the weird French fries.”
“It was probably them. This smell is...”
Don Eppes at a loss for words is something Billy has never accomplished before, his partner’s wit usually quick and lethal enough to match his own.
“It’s vile.”
“Farts usually are.”
“Yeah, but this is worse. Oh jeez, Billy.”
“Will you get over yourself, Eppes. It’s just a fart!”
“But you should’ve opened the window. Or warned me!”
“Is that the only problem you have?”
“Right now? Yeah.”
“You’re so lucky. You don’t have to worry about that guy, you know, Peter Sloterdeik... You ever heard of him, Eppes?”
“What a coincidence- I have!”
“Then get your brain in gear. Farts? You’re worrying about farts?”
Now he is annoyed. Eppes is good, but he is not that good that he can pull off that level of cheekiness with him yet.
“Get your act together, Eppes!”
“Gimme a break here, Coop. I’m still-“
“If you say you’re still trying to find your feet, I will club you over the head, tie you up and then fart all over you!”
“You have any brothers?”
That stops Billy dead in his tracks.
“What the Hell? You know I don’t. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“If you had a brother, you would’ve done all that farting shit with him when you were a kid. I mean, you do that shit when you’re an adolescent!”
“You ever do that with the genius?”
Funny how the curtain always slams shut over Don whenever he mentions his younger brother. At least it is one effective way to end unpleasant conversations. Bring up Charlie Eppes. Billy had heard of him before he had been partnered up with Don, and he had been wary of the prodigy. There was one article in the New York Times last year that mentioned that Charlie, along with all his accomplishments, especially the Eppes Convergence, was his parents’ golden child, the apple of their eyes.
So what did that make the older son that had been briefly mentioned?
Billy had wondered about it, and now he is sitting next to that brother, and he cannot imagine why the author of that article would simply dismiss him just like that. By the time the article had appeared, Don had already been in the FBI, had finished up the training course top of his class and was already some kind of a legend among the freshly minted junior agents- his talent and instincts already famed.
Now, they are both legends.
Billy already had a reputation before being partnered up with ‘the Terrier’ but together they are deadly.
“Charlie was too busy.”
Seems like he caught a good moment. Maybe Don is really in a mood to open up.
“To fart?”
The look his partner shoots him just then would be deadly if Billy was not able to read between the lines, discern the pain hiding behind it.
“To have fun, to do that kinda thing, you know? He was always all about learning.”
Don roughs up his hair a bit when he draws his fingers through it and Billy makes a mental note to tease him about the curls that are developing at the nape. Looks like Charlie Eppes is not the only curly haired Eppes, just with him they are more pronounced.
“Tutors and special teachers and psychologists. That sorta thing. By the time Mom and Dad remembered that he should be a child, too, it was too late.”
“That sounds gloomy.”
“He never could be a kid, you know? His talent was discovered when he was so young, and he’s been raised on it ever since. Honed, enhanced it, whatever. For him, fun is math.”
“You sure about that?”
“Oh, Mom tried to get him to play piano, Dad tried to get him to play baseball...”
The other man’s voice has trailed off, and the silence is worrying Billy now.
As closed up as Don usually is, he rarely lets a statement just hang in the air like that. Billy chances a glance, Don’s face is turned towards the window still watching the road, staring off onto what is ahead of him but probably not really seeing anything.
The moment is over.
Ah well. Billy mentally shrugs. It might be over for now, but it is not like Don and he never spend any quality time together.
In fact, they rarely do anything but.
“Well, this is messed up.”
Alan smirks at Robin’s dry remark, even though neither of them look away from Don.
The man in question turns, takes a few steps away from Billy, and it is all he can do not follow him. Don has always been his weakness in a way, the protective instinct he feels towards the other man always coming out full throttle when confronted with a tense situation.
And if this does not qualify as one, Billy does not know what does.
“We need to talk.”
This is quite the statement from Don Eppes, who usually avoids talking like the plague, but it seems that Robin has rubbed off on him.
“Okay.”
“Follow me.”
He knows that Eppes is an excellent interrogator, has seen him in action multiple times, but to have that cold and clinically detached voice directed at himself is a feeling that he never wants to experience again.
He has to set this right.
Don is already halfway out to the front yard and by the time Billy has caught up with him, he is sitting on the steps, arms propped up on bent knees, dark head bent down. Just from looking at the back of his head, Billy can tell that he is frowning, crinkles of unhappiness lining his features.
He plops down beside him and mirrors the posture.
“So, talk.”
Don’s head comes up so fast he must have gotten whiplash.
“Why do I have to talk? You were the one with the big mouth!”
“You’d rather I never told you?”
“Were you ever actually planning on telling me?”
Oops.
“This is what upsets me, Coop. This. You told me, but never meant to. And now it’s out and you don’t know what to do. Did you have any idea what you were asking for when you asked Mom?”
What can he say to that?
“You asked her something, you know I... Coop, damn it. Why the fuck did you do that?”
It is rare that Don Eppes resorts to swear words of the four- letter- variety, but Billy cannot really blame him.
“Was she upset?”
What?
“Huh?”
“You know, did she come right out and answer or... Did she fight? Was she uncomfortable?”
Oh. He knows that Don had issues with his parents that he was unsure if they cared for him as much as they cared for Charlie, but he did not know that the doubt ran this deep.
“Donnie, your mother loved you so much. Really. Seriously.”
That earns him a vicious glance, but the tension has deflated by the tiniest amount.
“Totally?”
“Absolutely.”
It is a game that they have been playing ever since their first meeting. For whatever reason, Don has always hated the word ‘seriously’ and whenever it slips past his lips, it has a sour sound to it, which Billy finds quite amusing, actually. They used to spend hours in the car imitating teenager’s language, totally forgoing the fact that once upon a time they had been talking like them, too, or at least had their own version of slang.
It was something they started to use to loosen up the mood after the emotionally draining hunt for Burt Brethren (and whenever Billy hears the word ‘brethren’ he gets a sour taste in his mouth).
“Do you know that her favourite non- piano piece was Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis?”
“No.”
“She used to have it on record, and she would sit me down in the evening before I had to go to bed, and would read to me or just listen to the record. Point out the chords and the instruments, the rhythm and the motions the conductor would make. This was my special time with her, because Dad would always stay away, and when Charlie was born, he would take him with him. So that I had Mom for myself for a while.”
It is rare for Don to talk so much in one go, but Billy will not break the spell right now. Somewhere in this is the key to why Don is questioning his mother’s love, which will then lead to them resolving this issue that is dangling between them like a hung man.
“I used to promise her that I would find a way to play that piece on the piano, but she’d always tell me to just concentrate on what others had already composed.”
Don interlaces his fingers, fiddles around with his hands.
“She would play a different piece of music every night, but it would always end with Williams. She said that it haunted her, that it broke her heart the first time she heard it. When I was eight- years- old, they took me to the Philharmonics. Charlie was with our granny, but they took me. It was a concert dedicated completely to Williams. Brilliant. Just so brilliant. I loved every minute of it.”
The fiddling has stopped but now one hand is compulsively opening and closing the clasp of his wristwatch.
“Mom promised me that she would take me to at least four concerts every year. Three months later Charlie started to count and that was it.”
“No more concerts?”
“Oh, we did go. Just not that many times. Makes you wonder, you know? If your mother promises you something, and then she doesn’t keep it? Trust is important... Faith is important. A child’s faith in their parents is essential in how they are growing up.”
“Makes your parents sound evil.”
“Oh no, they weren’t evil- just way in over their heads. And I could get around by myself, so they focussed on Charlie, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
Maybe his disdain has shone through because Don’s dark eyes are now directed at him, and the look is not a happy one.
“I didn’t want to be a burden, so I grew up. Helped out. I tried to be the big boy that Dad always told me I was, but then they went away with Charlie to meetings, and they left me with the sitter, or with granny. It didn’t happen often, but it did occur. What was I supposed to think?”
“That they didn’t want you.”
Don’s lips twitch in an ironic smile.
“I wanted to run away when I was ten. Because Mom was crying on the couch and her and Dad were fighting. I thought if I was gone, they wouldn’t have to worry about me and Charlie, just about Charlie. I would be fine. I had my things all packed up when I snuck across the hall to get my toothbrush-“
At this Billy has to snort.
“Your toothbrush?”
“Yes, my toothbrush.”
“Geez, Donnie, I knew you were all anal and OCD but running away with your toothbrush?”
“Just because I was running away didn’t mean I had to disregard my personal hygiene.”
An indignant Don is something funny, and Billy has to fight hard to suppress the chuckles threatening to spill.
“Anyways, I heard Mom and Dad talking. Mom said that she still wanted to teach me about music, that she still needed me to ground her. That she didn’t know what she’d do without me. She’d be lost without me, because she could share stuff with me, music and books. Dad said that he would never stop trying to teach me how to construct buildings, the statistics behind it and all, stuff that just didn’t interest me and all that. I don’t know how they got to talking about me, but there it was... Dad and Charlie were always more hands- on and science- y than her and me.”
He is certainly right about that. Billy will never forget his surprise when he learned that his new partner was a bookworm and had tapes of classical music among his rock music- ones.
“So you didn’t leave?”
“Nah, ‘course not. I felt I was needed. And not just as Donnie- who- can- babysit- Charlie, but as Donnie. Her son. Their son, that they still had to teach stuff.”
“Did anything change?”
“Nope. Well, no, that’s a lie. She paid more attention to me for a while. It felt good. Felt special.”
“You can play piano?”
“Yep.”
“That is cool. Really.”
“Lose the mocking tone, Coop, and I’ll believe you.”
“I mean it, man. Piano is good. I just took flute.”
Don chortles at this.
“Flute? Cute.”
“Yeah well, I had to. School requirement.”
“Why didn’t you take another instrument?”
“Because I didn’t pay attention.”
No more chortling. Don is outright laughing at him.
“May I just remind you, Eppes, that I am in the driver’s seat? I could always kick you out.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because you know I’d tell everybody.”
He has to concede this point.
“Fine you can stay.”
“Plus, the cold’s clogged up your sinuses, and your bloodhound instinct is not up to par.”
“You’re a comedian, you know that? Should take that act up on the road.”
“I wanted to, but they didn’t want me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“They said I didn’t smile enough.”
“Really?”
He has not seen Don smile much. It is not something the other man does frequently. He will have to make him get used to the fact that the lips can turn upward, too, in a genuinely amused visage, not just one with a snarking undertone to it.
“You any good?”
“At what?”
“The piano.”
The other man clams up underneath his gaze. Just like that. Snap your finger and you are done and that is all that you get out of Don Eppes for the day.
“Your brother play, too?”
“Yep.”
The tone has gone sharp now. He is treading on thin ice.
“Better than you? Excelled at that, too?”
He never was one for caution.
“Actually, he sucked at it.”
Wonder Boy sucked at something? Billy feels as though his eyes have grown the size of saucers.
“And of course then the teacher paid more attention to him because it couldn’t be that Charlie didn’t have a feeling for rhythm when he could tell you in what tact they were played so effortlessly. Nooooo.”
Don shakes his head, his voice pitched high in a dramatical fashion.
“Took them a couple of years to figure out that he was tone deaf. Still is.”
There is more to it, Billy can feel it.
“And?”
“By then I’d already stopped playing. Charlie sucked the fun out of it. Stupid black hole of a math genius.”
Sometimes disregard of caution is the right way to play the field, and it seems as though Billy has scored a homerun.
“He’d intrude on everything. Piano lessons, time with Mom, baseball. Always following me around like a stupid puppy. And it was always about him. Teachers always compared me to him. And you know what? I don’t think his English teacher in primary school ever graded his paper. It had mistakes all over it, but because he was Charlie Eppes, he got a free ride to fuckin’ everywhere!”
“So, he got a get out of jail- card?”
“I used to think so. Now, of course, no. But he got a lotta leeway, anyways.”
“Because he was the genius.”
“Yes... And all I got to hear was that I wasn’t the genius. That all that I was good at was sports. Jock, you know?”
Billy has to smile at that. Don can pull off the jock persona pretty well, when in truth he is anything but.
“Yeah, but you were good, weren’t’cha?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, ‘course. I love sports. But I wasn’t so bad in school either.”
Don rests his head on the window, staring out the scenery they are passing by. Billy gives him a moment to reflect. His partner, his friend, is not one who talks a lot, and this recent rush of words out of his mouth has probably exhausted him, or something.
“He’d sit with me after school, watching me practice, shouting stats and all that over the field, wanting to help us.”
His hand rubs over his face, a sure sign of distress, even if his expression and voice does not give anything away.
“I couldn’t care less, kinda ignored him. He was my little brother, yeah, and I’d watch out for him during school, but at baseball, that was my turf. He’d no right to intrude. Just pretended he wasn’t there.”
There is a point to this; Don rarely speaks without having a purpose.
“Some other guys, they didn’t just ignore him. They taunted him, idiots, just pushed him around a bit after practice when he was waiting for me. He was a scrawny kid, couldn’t really do anything against them. They knew I’d kick their asses once I got out, so if they were in a nasty mood, they’d stall me.”
He softly thumps his head against the window.
“One day I just snapped, got into a fight with some of them. They deserved it, Charlie had scraped his knees fairly badly because they’d pushed him to the ground, sat on him. Jock shit. Wedgies and noogies and all that.”
More face scrubbing.
“Anyways, that day, they stole my clothes, hid them in the gear room, and I knew something was up. When I finally got out, I got into a fight with them, which coach broke up. Gave me shit about not protecting my brother properly.”
His face twists into a nasty expression, sneering.
“’Why are you standing around, watching them beat up your brother, Eppes! You know better than to just stand by! Look out for your brother better, Eppes. His brain is more valuable than yours.’ He didn’t say anything to the guys, just gave me a put down. They got detention, too, but still... That’s how it was. I protected the little shit and it wouldn’t be enough.”
“What did Charlie say?”
“Defended me, but coach wouldn’t listen. Little brother talking about older brother who should’ve known better and all that. They respected him for his big ass brains, but never really took his opinions seriously, what he had to say outside the classroom... I mean, he was sheltered, still is, in a way, with his head all stuck up in the heavens of science and math, but he knows stuff, he has an opinion.”
“Worshipped you?”
“A bit, yeah. Never understood why, though. He intimidates the shit out of me. He knew stuff when he was eight that I still don’t have a clue about. You know how that feels?”
He does not have to answer that. It is fairly obvious.
“He can be arrogant. He’s aloof at times. I know he looks down on me sometimes. But he never does it out of spite. That’s just how it is.”
Billy cannot just let this rest.
“That’s not right. He could try and develop some tact, you know. Maybe pay attention to other people’s emotions.”
“How? Everything has always revolved around him. He doesn’t know any better.”
Don looks at him, eyes a bit sad.
“At times I wonder if my parents’d had me if Charlie had been born first. I don’t think they would’ve. At times I hate him. What kinda brother does that make me?”
“I know my parents wanted me. But the other way round? I would’ve been a nuisance.”
It is quite possible that either way it would have turned out, Don would have drawn the short straw when it came to attention. The focus would have been on Charlie just the same, and Don knows this. That probably hurts just as much as the mere thought of his parents not wanting him had Charlie been born first.
“I can understand them, I tell that myself all the time. But...”
“... a part never stops wondering.”
“Nah, not wondering. Hurting.”
The silence around them is heavy, but Billy does not know how to break it, how to ease the tension.
“I can’t change anything now, I know that. But a question like that stays with you, if you don’t have the answer.”
“Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting.”
They have had many conversations, but never have they been this expressive about emotions.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
They sitting on the steps, close to each other, in a similar position, hands clasped in front of them, dangling between their knees. Billy cannot resist but bump shoulders with Don.
“You’re my little brother, man.”
Don looks up at him from underneath his lashes, a shy smile tentatively lightning up his face.
“Tell anyone else, and I’ll deny every word.”
“They won’t hear it from me, big brother.”
It is weird to think that they have never actually said those words. It is a thoroughly cheesy moment that makes Billy gag a bit, but he also knows that they needed exactly this, to talk things out, even if not much talking has been done.
This has always been their method. They will not change that. It is what works best for them, so why should they change a winning tactic?
“We okay?”
He still has to ask, an uncertainty still lingering, a feeling he is not too fond of.
This time Don bumps him in the shoulder.
“Yeah. We’re okay.”
“Beer?”
“Oh God, yes.”
Girly time is over.
And they are good. That is all that he wants. All that he wishes for.
In a movement that Billy cannot explain, he launches himself at Don’s retreating back so that he will have to carry him, the other man stumbling, nearly falling before he recovers and shifts Billy around on his back, so that he fits.
It is a moment of lightness direly needed after the anxiety of the evening so far and he glimpses Robin with a camera, standing around the corner of the house.
Picture perfect.
At least for now.
Series: Ulysses *8/12*
Author: loozy
Characters: Billy- pov, Don, Robin, Don/ Robin, Alan/ Margaret
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary: “Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting.”
Word Count: 4322
Spoilers: after 5x23, Angels & Devils
Notes: A million tons of thanks as always go to valeriev84 and to rinkle who beta’ed this for me and helped me make this more authentic...
Prompt: # 151 Devotion
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.
“Pretty much the same that Alan said... I’m sorry, Don.”
“You knew and you never told me?”
If you tried, you would be able to cut the tension with a knife.
“You knew that I wondered about that. And you went and asked and you never told me? What the hell, Coop?”
“There are some things better left unsaid.”
Don’s eyes are as cold and dark as his voice.
“This was not one of those things... You never had the right to ask her this! How? Why? I... Coop...”
There have not been many circumstances where Don Eppes was at a loss for words and Coop was there to witness it, but this is a scene he would rather scratch from his memory right now. The thing is he does not know himself why he did it, why he did not tell Don about asking Margaret.
Maybe it was because he wanted to protect the other man. Don has been hurt by his parents’ actions before as they were unaware of the impact they had on their oldest son. From what Don told him, Margaret and Alan were good attentive parents who were just in a difficult situation. No- one knows how to deal with a gifted child, and another child just adds strain on the best of relationships.
There is only so much attention both parents can divide between the children, and at some point, the child in more need of attention draws them in more. They rely on the other child to be able to get along on his own, yet never fail to show him how much they love and appreciate him.
At least that is what he understood from what Margaret told him.
They were depending on Don being able to care for himself at times; otherwise they would not have known how to deal.
“Because Margaret asked me not to.”
She had, actually. Never said it out loud, but implied it in the way she had acted towards Billy afterwards. Apprehensive yet attentive, still in mother- mode with Don and him but there was something about her behaviour that told him that what she had told him better not come to Don’s attention.
Now, though, more than a decade later, it has, and Billy wonders what possessed him to open his big fat mouth and sprout out the truth.
He should have just shut up and let things pass by. No- one would have been the wiser.
There will be time for self- flagellation later. A lot of time, so he has to concentrate on the now, because otherwise they might not escape this unscathed.
“What? She asked you not to tell me?”
The betrayal is clear in Don’s voice, and it hurts Billy. From the look on Robin’s face, she hurts, too, for Don, while Alan’s visage is closed off.
Not good.
He is the villain in this drama at the moment, he is the one who came onto the stage after two of the good people asked him to join them, and now he has destroyed the peace.
“I don’t think she wanted to cause you pain.”
“And you thought now it wouldn’t?”
“No. I didn’t... It just came out. I don’t know why.”
“It just came out. I don’t know why.”
“You’re disgusting, Coop. Oh God, what did you have for dinner?”
Don is rolling down the driver’s window, trying to get the smell of Billy’s series of farts out of the car as quick as possible, otherwise they might just die from the fumes.
“I had the same shit as you. And the weird French fries.”
“It was probably them. This smell is...”
Don Eppes at a loss for words is something Billy has never accomplished before, his partner’s wit usually quick and lethal enough to match his own.
“It’s vile.”
“Farts usually are.”
“Yeah, but this is worse. Oh jeez, Billy.”
“Will you get over yourself, Eppes. It’s just a fart!”
“But you should’ve opened the window. Or warned me!”
“Is that the only problem you have?”
“Right now? Yeah.”
“You’re so lucky. You don’t have to worry about that guy, you know, Peter Sloterdeik... You ever heard of him, Eppes?”
“What a coincidence- I have!”
“Then get your brain in gear. Farts? You’re worrying about farts?”
Now he is annoyed. Eppes is good, but he is not that good that he can pull off that level of cheekiness with him yet.
“Get your act together, Eppes!”
“Gimme a break here, Coop. I’m still-“
“If you say you’re still trying to find your feet, I will club you over the head, tie you up and then fart all over you!”
“You have any brothers?”
That stops Billy dead in his tracks.
“What the Hell? You know I don’t. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“If you had a brother, you would’ve done all that farting shit with him when you were a kid. I mean, you do that shit when you’re an adolescent!”
“You ever do that with the genius?”
Funny how the curtain always slams shut over Don whenever he mentions his younger brother. At least it is one effective way to end unpleasant conversations. Bring up Charlie Eppes. Billy had heard of him before he had been partnered up with Don, and he had been wary of the prodigy. There was one article in the New York Times last year that mentioned that Charlie, along with all his accomplishments, especially the Eppes Convergence, was his parents’ golden child, the apple of their eyes.
So what did that make the older son that had been briefly mentioned?
Billy had wondered about it, and now he is sitting next to that brother, and he cannot imagine why the author of that article would simply dismiss him just like that. By the time the article had appeared, Don had already been in the FBI, had finished up the training course top of his class and was already some kind of a legend among the freshly minted junior agents- his talent and instincts already famed.
Now, they are both legends.
Billy already had a reputation before being partnered up with ‘the Terrier’ but together they are deadly.
“Charlie was too busy.”
Seems like he caught a good moment. Maybe Don is really in a mood to open up.
“To fart?”
The look his partner shoots him just then would be deadly if Billy was not able to read between the lines, discern the pain hiding behind it.
“To have fun, to do that kinda thing, you know? He was always all about learning.”
Don roughs up his hair a bit when he draws his fingers through it and Billy makes a mental note to tease him about the curls that are developing at the nape. Looks like Charlie Eppes is not the only curly haired Eppes, just with him they are more pronounced.
“Tutors and special teachers and psychologists. That sorta thing. By the time Mom and Dad remembered that he should be a child, too, it was too late.”
“That sounds gloomy.”
“He never could be a kid, you know? His talent was discovered when he was so young, and he’s been raised on it ever since. Honed, enhanced it, whatever. For him, fun is math.”
“You sure about that?”
“Oh, Mom tried to get him to play piano, Dad tried to get him to play baseball...”
The other man’s voice has trailed off, and the silence is worrying Billy now.
As closed up as Don usually is, he rarely lets a statement just hang in the air like that. Billy chances a glance, Don’s face is turned towards the window still watching the road, staring off onto what is ahead of him but probably not really seeing anything.
The moment is over.
Ah well. Billy mentally shrugs. It might be over for now, but it is not like Don and he never spend any quality time together.
In fact, they rarely do anything but.
“Well, this is messed up.”
Alan smirks at Robin’s dry remark, even though neither of them look away from Don.
The man in question turns, takes a few steps away from Billy, and it is all he can do not follow him. Don has always been his weakness in a way, the protective instinct he feels towards the other man always coming out full throttle when confronted with a tense situation.
And if this does not qualify as one, Billy does not know what does.
“We need to talk.”
This is quite the statement from Don Eppes, who usually avoids talking like the plague, but it seems that Robin has rubbed off on him.
“Okay.”
“Follow me.”
He knows that Eppes is an excellent interrogator, has seen him in action multiple times, but to have that cold and clinically detached voice directed at himself is a feeling that he never wants to experience again.
He has to set this right.
Don is already halfway out to the front yard and by the time Billy has caught up with him, he is sitting on the steps, arms propped up on bent knees, dark head bent down. Just from looking at the back of his head, Billy can tell that he is frowning, crinkles of unhappiness lining his features.
He plops down beside him and mirrors the posture.
“So, talk.”
Don’s head comes up so fast he must have gotten whiplash.
“Why do I have to talk? You were the one with the big mouth!”
“You’d rather I never told you?”
“Were you ever actually planning on telling me?”
Oops.
“This is what upsets me, Coop. This. You told me, but never meant to. And now it’s out and you don’t know what to do. Did you have any idea what you were asking for when you asked Mom?”
What can he say to that?
“You asked her something, you know I... Coop, damn it. Why the fuck did you do that?”
It is rare that Don Eppes resorts to swear words of the four- letter- variety, but Billy cannot really blame him.
“Was she upset?”
What?
“Huh?”
“You know, did she come right out and answer or... Did she fight? Was she uncomfortable?”
Oh. He knows that Don had issues with his parents that he was unsure if they cared for him as much as they cared for Charlie, but he did not know that the doubt ran this deep.
“Donnie, your mother loved you so much. Really. Seriously.”
That earns him a vicious glance, but the tension has deflated by the tiniest amount.
“Totally?”
“Absolutely.”
It is a game that they have been playing ever since their first meeting. For whatever reason, Don has always hated the word ‘seriously’ and whenever it slips past his lips, it has a sour sound to it, which Billy finds quite amusing, actually. They used to spend hours in the car imitating teenager’s language, totally forgoing the fact that once upon a time they had been talking like them, too, or at least had their own version of slang.
It was something they started to use to loosen up the mood after the emotionally draining hunt for Burt Brethren (and whenever Billy hears the word ‘brethren’ he gets a sour taste in his mouth).
“Do you know that her favourite non- piano piece was Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis?”
“No.”
“She used to have it on record, and she would sit me down in the evening before I had to go to bed, and would read to me or just listen to the record. Point out the chords and the instruments, the rhythm and the motions the conductor would make. This was my special time with her, because Dad would always stay away, and when Charlie was born, he would take him with him. So that I had Mom for myself for a while.”
It is rare for Don to talk so much in one go, but Billy will not break the spell right now. Somewhere in this is the key to why Don is questioning his mother’s love, which will then lead to them resolving this issue that is dangling between them like a hung man.
“I used to promise her that I would find a way to play that piece on the piano, but she’d always tell me to just concentrate on what others had already composed.”
Don interlaces his fingers, fiddles around with his hands.
“She would play a different piece of music every night, but it would always end with Williams. She said that it haunted her, that it broke her heart the first time she heard it. When I was eight- years- old, they took me to the Philharmonics. Charlie was with our granny, but they took me. It was a concert dedicated completely to Williams. Brilliant. Just so brilliant. I loved every minute of it.”
The fiddling has stopped but now one hand is compulsively opening and closing the clasp of his wristwatch.
“Mom promised me that she would take me to at least four concerts every year. Three months later Charlie started to count and that was it.”
“No more concerts?”
“Oh, we did go. Just not that many times. Makes you wonder, you know? If your mother promises you something, and then she doesn’t keep it? Trust is important... Faith is important. A child’s faith in their parents is essential in how they are growing up.”
“Makes your parents sound evil.”
“Oh no, they weren’t evil- just way in over their heads. And I could get around by myself, so they focussed on Charlie, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
Maybe his disdain has shone through because Don’s dark eyes are now directed at him, and the look is not a happy one.
“I didn’t want to be a burden, so I grew up. Helped out. I tried to be the big boy that Dad always told me I was, but then they went away with Charlie to meetings, and they left me with the sitter, or with granny. It didn’t happen often, but it did occur. What was I supposed to think?”
“That they didn’t want you.”
Don’s lips twitch in an ironic smile.
“I wanted to run away when I was ten. Because Mom was crying on the couch and her and Dad were fighting. I thought if I was gone, they wouldn’t have to worry about me and Charlie, just about Charlie. I would be fine. I had my things all packed up when I snuck across the hall to get my toothbrush-“
At this Billy has to snort.
“Your toothbrush?”
“Yes, my toothbrush.”
“Geez, Donnie, I knew you were all anal and OCD but running away with your toothbrush?”
“Just because I was running away didn’t mean I had to disregard my personal hygiene.”
An indignant Don is something funny, and Billy has to fight hard to suppress the chuckles threatening to spill.
“Anyways, I heard Mom and Dad talking. Mom said that she still wanted to teach me about music, that she still needed me to ground her. That she didn’t know what she’d do without me. She’d be lost without me, because she could share stuff with me, music and books. Dad said that he would never stop trying to teach me how to construct buildings, the statistics behind it and all, stuff that just didn’t interest me and all that. I don’t know how they got to talking about me, but there it was... Dad and Charlie were always more hands- on and science- y than her and me.”
He is certainly right about that. Billy will never forget his surprise when he learned that his new partner was a bookworm and had tapes of classical music among his rock music- ones.
“So you didn’t leave?”
“Nah, ‘course not. I felt I was needed. And not just as Donnie- who- can- babysit- Charlie, but as Donnie. Her son. Their son, that they still had to teach stuff.”
“Did anything change?”
“Nope. Well, no, that’s a lie. She paid more attention to me for a while. It felt good. Felt special.”
“You can play piano?”
“Yep.”
“That is cool. Really.”
“Lose the mocking tone, Coop, and I’ll believe you.”
“I mean it, man. Piano is good. I just took flute.”
Don chortles at this.
“Flute? Cute.”
“Yeah well, I had to. School requirement.”
“Why didn’t you take another instrument?”
“Because I didn’t pay attention.”
No more chortling. Don is outright laughing at him.
“May I just remind you, Eppes, that I am in the driver’s seat? I could always kick you out.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because you know I’d tell everybody.”
He has to concede this point.
“Fine you can stay.”
“Plus, the cold’s clogged up your sinuses, and your bloodhound instinct is not up to par.”
“You’re a comedian, you know that? Should take that act up on the road.”
“I wanted to, but they didn’t want me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“They said I didn’t smile enough.”
“Really?”
He has not seen Don smile much. It is not something the other man does frequently. He will have to make him get used to the fact that the lips can turn upward, too, in a genuinely amused visage, not just one with a snarking undertone to it.
“You any good?”
“At what?”
“The piano.”
The other man clams up underneath his gaze. Just like that. Snap your finger and you are done and that is all that you get out of Don Eppes for the day.
“Your brother play, too?”
“Yep.”
The tone has gone sharp now. He is treading on thin ice.
“Better than you? Excelled at that, too?”
He never was one for caution.
“Actually, he sucked at it.”
Wonder Boy sucked at something? Billy feels as though his eyes have grown the size of saucers.
“And of course then the teacher paid more attention to him because it couldn’t be that Charlie didn’t have a feeling for rhythm when he could tell you in what tact they were played so effortlessly. Nooooo.”
Don shakes his head, his voice pitched high in a dramatical fashion.
“Took them a couple of years to figure out that he was tone deaf. Still is.”
There is more to it, Billy can feel it.
“And?”
“By then I’d already stopped playing. Charlie sucked the fun out of it. Stupid black hole of a math genius.”
Sometimes disregard of caution is the right way to play the field, and it seems as though Billy has scored a homerun.
“He’d intrude on everything. Piano lessons, time with Mom, baseball. Always following me around like a stupid puppy. And it was always about him. Teachers always compared me to him. And you know what? I don’t think his English teacher in primary school ever graded his paper. It had mistakes all over it, but because he was Charlie Eppes, he got a free ride to fuckin’ everywhere!”
“So, he got a get out of jail- card?”
“I used to think so. Now, of course, no. But he got a lotta leeway, anyways.”
“Because he was the genius.”
“Yes... And all I got to hear was that I wasn’t the genius. That all that I was good at was sports. Jock, you know?”
Billy has to smile at that. Don can pull off the jock persona pretty well, when in truth he is anything but.
“Yeah, but you were good, weren’t’cha?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, ‘course. I love sports. But I wasn’t so bad in school either.”
Don rests his head on the window, staring out the scenery they are passing by. Billy gives him a moment to reflect. His partner, his friend, is not one who talks a lot, and this recent rush of words out of his mouth has probably exhausted him, or something.
“He’d sit with me after school, watching me practice, shouting stats and all that over the field, wanting to help us.”
His hand rubs over his face, a sure sign of distress, even if his expression and voice does not give anything away.
“I couldn’t care less, kinda ignored him. He was my little brother, yeah, and I’d watch out for him during school, but at baseball, that was my turf. He’d no right to intrude. Just pretended he wasn’t there.”
There is a point to this; Don rarely speaks without having a purpose.
“Some other guys, they didn’t just ignore him. They taunted him, idiots, just pushed him around a bit after practice when he was waiting for me. He was a scrawny kid, couldn’t really do anything against them. They knew I’d kick their asses once I got out, so if they were in a nasty mood, they’d stall me.”
He softly thumps his head against the window.
“One day I just snapped, got into a fight with some of them. They deserved it, Charlie had scraped his knees fairly badly because they’d pushed him to the ground, sat on him. Jock shit. Wedgies and noogies and all that.”
More face scrubbing.
“Anyways, that day, they stole my clothes, hid them in the gear room, and I knew something was up. When I finally got out, I got into a fight with them, which coach broke up. Gave me shit about not protecting my brother properly.”
His face twists into a nasty expression, sneering.
“’Why are you standing around, watching them beat up your brother, Eppes! You know better than to just stand by! Look out for your brother better, Eppes. His brain is more valuable than yours.’ He didn’t say anything to the guys, just gave me a put down. They got detention, too, but still... That’s how it was. I protected the little shit and it wouldn’t be enough.”
“What did Charlie say?”
“Defended me, but coach wouldn’t listen. Little brother talking about older brother who should’ve known better and all that. They respected him for his big ass brains, but never really took his opinions seriously, what he had to say outside the classroom... I mean, he was sheltered, still is, in a way, with his head all stuck up in the heavens of science and math, but he knows stuff, he has an opinion.”
“Worshipped you?”
“A bit, yeah. Never understood why, though. He intimidates the shit out of me. He knew stuff when he was eight that I still don’t have a clue about. You know how that feels?”
He does not have to answer that. It is fairly obvious.
“He can be arrogant. He’s aloof at times. I know he looks down on me sometimes. But he never does it out of spite. That’s just how it is.”
Billy cannot just let this rest.
“That’s not right. He could try and develop some tact, you know. Maybe pay attention to other people’s emotions.”
“How? Everything has always revolved around him. He doesn’t know any better.”
Don looks at him, eyes a bit sad.
“At times I wonder if my parents’d had me if Charlie had been born first. I don’t think they would’ve. At times I hate him. What kinda brother does that make me?”
“I know my parents wanted me. But the other way round? I would’ve been a nuisance.”
It is quite possible that either way it would have turned out, Don would have drawn the short straw when it came to attention. The focus would have been on Charlie just the same, and Don knows this. That probably hurts just as much as the mere thought of his parents not wanting him had Charlie been born first.
“I can understand them, I tell that myself all the time. But...”
“... a part never stops wondering.”
“Nah, not wondering. Hurting.”
The silence around them is heavy, but Billy does not know how to break it, how to ease the tension.
“I can’t change anything now, I know that. But a question like that stays with you, if you don’t have the answer.”
“Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting.”
They have had many conversations, but never have they been this expressive about emotions.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
They sitting on the steps, close to each other, in a similar position, hands clasped in front of them, dangling between their knees. Billy cannot resist but bump shoulders with Don.
“You’re my little brother, man.”
Don looks up at him from underneath his lashes, a shy smile tentatively lightning up his face.
“Tell anyone else, and I’ll deny every word.”
“They won’t hear it from me, big brother.”
It is weird to think that they have never actually said those words. It is a thoroughly cheesy moment that makes Billy gag a bit, but he also knows that they needed exactly this, to talk things out, even if not much talking has been done.
This has always been their method. They will not change that. It is what works best for them, so why should they change a winning tactic?
“We okay?”
He still has to ask, an uncertainty still lingering, a feeling he is not too fond of.
This time Don bumps him in the shoulder.
“Yeah. We’re okay.”
“Beer?”
“Oh God, yes.”
Girly time is over.
And they are good. That is all that he wants. All that he wishes for.
In a movement that Billy cannot explain, he launches himself at Don’s retreating back so that he will have to carry him, the other man stumbling, nearly falling before he recovers and shifts Billy around on his back, so that he fits.
It is a moment of lightness direly needed after the anxiety of the evening so far and he glimpses Robin with a camera, standing around the corner of the house.
Picture perfect.
At least for now.