23: fan fic { numb3rs } : "let that fever play (a waltz in triplets)" [coop/amita]
title. let that fever play (a waltz in triplets)
author. nv
fandom. numb3rs
characters. billy cooper/amita ramanujan (don/coop, charlie/amita)
genre. drama/angst/experimental
rating. r
warnings. het, sexual content, language
word count. 836
challenge. "sunrise" for team angst (numb3rswriteoff)
spoilers. "man hunt"
summary. life after the brothers eppes.
feedback. is the reason i do this.
disclaimer. the characters and canon contained herein are the property of cheryl heuton and nicolas falacci, as well as any associated writers, producers, networks, and parent companies. the following was written by neur0 vanity. no copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.
author's notes. this is not the fic i started writing three weeks ago. this is not the fic i've been talking up to everyone. that fic got a little too bulky for me to complete in time. instead, i bring you this.
lyrics from the bright eyes song "sunrise, sunset."
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you’ve read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located here. (Your vote will be anonymous.) Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt [sunrise], how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you’re done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
one.
Towards a sunrise or a sunset,
a scribble or a sonnet.
They are really just the same.
A delicate hand - fingernails like pink pearls - moves chalk. Lines of powdery white cover a green that’s almost black, almost black like the waves and ringlets of onyx hair that cascade from the crown of her head down over slender shoulders wrapped in wool, this nubbly fabric that looks warm and soft and the color of the sunrise over an Arizona canyon that he saw once upon a time on a hunt. Lines pour out onto the board with a speed that’s manic, abrupt starts and stops like she’s driving a car for the first time, like she’s fucking for the first time. Another delicate hand comes up to scratch at the roots of her hair and then tuck tresses behind an ear.
The scent of chalk dust mixes with her perfume of flowers and musk, and it’s intoxicating to him as he stands behind her, behind her desk, behind the arrangements of flowers and photographs. She’s a big girl now, not the doe-eyed worshipper of Charles Eppes that wore her rose-tinted sunglasses like a proud couture accessory.
He clears his throat, and Amita jumps as she turns, and there’s a smile to light up the room. They’ve bonded over this already, two people who’ve lost their Eppes lovers. Weakness, vulnerability, loss - they make a patchwork quilt from pieces warm enough for two. She sets her chalk down and pulls her hair back off her shoulders, tilts her head to the side, and looks at him with expectant eyes.
two.
The sunrise and the sunsets.
You are lying while you confess,
keep trying to explain.
Chianti stains her teeth almost purple, and her lips are red, and her eyes are glassy from the candlelight set between them at the table, a centerpiece adorned by silk flowers and glass stones and pieces of pinecones. With the wintry décor, the strings of white lights wrapped around banisters and the bar, the fireplace crackling in the corner, Coop could almost believe that it was winter outside, the real kind of winter that he’d seen in the Midwest during hunts, the kind of winter where there was snow on the ground, not this fake winter, this California winter.
Through Chianti-stained teeth, she asks Coop if he misses him. She doesn’t say Don, the same way he doesn’t say Charlie; they are verboten words like the true name of God. She asks him if he misses him, and his response is so long and convoluted, so polluted with tales of long and lonely life out in the field and across the country, so sullied with sad stories of times apart, that she doesn’t really notice that he doesn’t really answer the question.
Quid pro quo, he asks the same of her, and she looks away as she says no. No, she doesn’t miss him, and does he have the keys to the hotel? No, she doesn’t miss Charlie, and all she wants is for Coop to take her back to the hotel. He tries to read her as he sucks up the last of his Tequila Sunrise and gives up quickly because the story below the surface is too complex to explain.
three.
For a sunrise or a sunset,
your lover is an actress.
Did you really think she'd stay?
As she opens the clasp of her bra and lets it fall down her shoulders - olive skin and rosy nipples exposed - thoughts of Don are pushed from his mind. She laughs when his fingers get caught in her thick hair, in the tangles of hairspray and curls, and she says that used to happen all the time with Charlie, but she doesn’t say if it was his fingers or hers. Coop has to fuck her from behind because he can’t bear to look at her, but the position makes him think of times with Don, and he begins to feel sick to his stomach. He finishes quickly and tries to convince himself that he got her off when he really knows that she was just playing along.
When he wakes - the room getting lighter - she’s gone. He’s shocked and upset for a moment, upset that he’s been used like this, but emotions go numb as he reminds himself that this is just another example of someone doing this to him, and at least she had the courtesy to make it a quick death, to not drag it out for years the way Don had, the way Don would call him from Albuquerque or LA or wherever between girls, and Coop would believe they had a shot, but then - inevitably - a few months later Coop would call, and Don would say there was someone else. This is just another case, another sunset.
Out on the hotel balcony, the sunrise appears at the Pacific’s edge, and the ocean is an orange skein of silk. He lights a cigarette, and the smoke is rough in his throat and lungs, rough like the bourbon they drank in the hotel, rough like the baritone scratch of his voice. When the butt glows like the horizon and the smoke grows faint, he flicks the cigarette over the ledge and watches its embers burst like fireworks as it hits the sidewalk below.
end.
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you’ve read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located here. (Your vote will be anonymous.) Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt [sunrise], how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you’re done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
like it? watch whereismytalent.
author. nv
fandom. numb3rs
characters. billy cooper/amita ramanujan (don/coop, charlie/amita)
genre. drama/angst/experimental
rating. r
warnings. het, sexual content, language
word count. 836
challenge. "sunrise" for team angst (numb3rswriteoff)
spoilers. "man hunt"
summary. life after the brothers eppes.
feedback. is the reason i do this.
disclaimer. the characters and canon contained herein are the property of cheryl heuton and nicolas falacci, as well as any associated writers, producers, networks, and parent companies. the following was written by neur0 vanity. no copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.
author's notes. this is not the fic i started writing three weeks ago. this is not the fic i've been talking up to everyone. that fic got a little too bulky for me to complete in time. instead, i bring you this.
lyrics from the bright eyes song "sunrise, sunset."
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you’ve read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located here. (Your vote will be anonymous.) Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt [sunrise], how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you’re done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
one.
Towards a sunrise or a sunset,
a scribble or a sonnet.
They are really just the same.
A delicate hand - fingernails like pink pearls - moves chalk. Lines of powdery white cover a green that’s almost black, almost black like the waves and ringlets of onyx hair that cascade from the crown of her head down over slender shoulders wrapped in wool, this nubbly fabric that looks warm and soft and the color of the sunrise over an Arizona canyon that he saw once upon a time on a hunt. Lines pour out onto the board with a speed that’s manic, abrupt starts and stops like she’s driving a car for the first time, like she’s fucking for the first time. Another delicate hand comes up to scratch at the roots of her hair and then tuck tresses behind an ear.
The scent of chalk dust mixes with her perfume of flowers and musk, and it’s intoxicating to him as he stands behind her, behind her desk, behind the arrangements of flowers and photographs. She’s a big girl now, not the doe-eyed worshipper of Charles Eppes that wore her rose-tinted sunglasses like a proud couture accessory.
He clears his throat, and Amita jumps as she turns, and there’s a smile to light up the room. They’ve bonded over this already, two people who’ve lost their Eppes lovers. Weakness, vulnerability, loss - they make a patchwork quilt from pieces warm enough for two. She sets her chalk down and pulls her hair back off her shoulders, tilts her head to the side, and looks at him with expectant eyes.
two.
The sunrise and the sunsets.
You are lying while you confess,
keep trying to explain.
Chianti stains her teeth almost purple, and her lips are red, and her eyes are glassy from the candlelight set between them at the table, a centerpiece adorned by silk flowers and glass stones and pieces of pinecones. With the wintry décor, the strings of white lights wrapped around banisters and the bar, the fireplace crackling in the corner, Coop could almost believe that it was winter outside, the real kind of winter that he’d seen in the Midwest during hunts, the kind of winter where there was snow on the ground, not this fake winter, this California winter.
Through Chianti-stained teeth, she asks Coop if he misses him. She doesn’t say Don, the same way he doesn’t say Charlie; they are verboten words like the true name of God. She asks him if he misses him, and his response is so long and convoluted, so polluted with tales of long and lonely life out in the field and across the country, so sullied with sad stories of times apart, that she doesn’t really notice that he doesn’t really answer the question.
Quid pro quo, he asks the same of her, and she looks away as she says no. No, she doesn’t miss him, and does he have the keys to the hotel? No, she doesn’t miss Charlie, and all she wants is for Coop to take her back to the hotel. He tries to read her as he sucks up the last of his Tequila Sunrise and gives up quickly because the story below the surface is too complex to explain.
three.
For a sunrise or a sunset,
your lover is an actress.
Did you really think she'd stay?
As she opens the clasp of her bra and lets it fall down her shoulders - olive skin and rosy nipples exposed - thoughts of Don are pushed from his mind. She laughs when his fingers get caught in her thick hair, in the tangles of hairspray and curls, and she says that used to happen all the time with Charlie, but she doesn’t say if it was his fingers or hers. Coop has to fuck her from behind because he can’t bear to look at her, but the position makes him think of times with Don, and he begins to feel sick to his stomach. He finishes quickly and tries to convince himself that he got her off when he really knows that she was just playing along.
When he wakes - the room getting lighter - she’s gone. He’s shocked and upset for a moment, upset that he’s been used like this, but emotions go numb as he reminds himself that this is just another example of someone doing this to him, and at least she had the courtesy to make it a quick death, to not drag it out for years the way Don had, the way Don would call him from Albuquerque or LA or wherever between girls, and Coop would believe they had a shot, but then - inevitably - a few months later Coop would call, and Don would say there was someone else. This is just another case, another sunset.
Out on the hotel balcony, the sunrise appears at the Pacific’s edge, and the ocean is an orange skein of silk. He lights a cigarette, and the smoke is rough in his throat and lungs, rough like the bourbon they drank in the hotel, rough like the baritone scratch of his voice. When the butt glows like the horizon and the smoke grows faint, he flicks the cigarette over the ledge and watches its embers burst like fireworks as it hits the sidewalk below.
end.
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you’ve read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located here. (Your vote will be anonymous.) Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt [sunrise], how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you’re done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
like it? watch whereismytalent.