Normal, [T] Charlie
Title: Normal
Rating: T
Characters: Charlie
Warnings: language
Genres: Gen, Angst
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 632
Disclaimer: *dies laughing at the thought of a dyscalculic being the creator of a show about complex math*
Summary: Sometimes, Charlie wishes he wasn't a genius.
Sometimes, Charlie wishes he wasn't a genius.
When he was nine he watched kids at a birthday party, laughing and playing tag and just acting like... kids. He was sitting in the shade of a tree with his cake, calculating pursuit curves for the runners and the 'it' and wondering what it was like to just play a game for the sheer mindless joy of playing it. When he finished his cake, Timmy's mom asked him if he wanted another piece politely told her no and asked if he could use the phone to call his mother for a ride.
Even at nine he was painfully aware that he was not like the other kids.
o.o
Sometimes, Charlie wishes he could be a normal person-whatever normal is, though he's pretty sure it involves not being able to calculate pi to that many places in his head.
When he was twelve, he watched his brother charm the girls after baseball practice and calculated the odds that one of them would give Don their phone number. Not that those were particularly difficult odds to calculate, but he didn't always look for the hardest math he could find to do for a distraction. Don came over, a number scrawled on his hand and two more scraps of paper tucked in his back pocket, and asked Charlie if he wanted to stay and play some catch. Charlie politely refused and said he had an essay to write for another college application.
Even at twelve he understood that pretending you were something you weren't only made things worse in the long run.
o.o
Sometimes, Charlie wishes he had could be 'one of the guys'-the kind that went over to a coworker's house for a beer and a game and didn't end up discussing the latest scientific theory that was utter bullshit being shoveled by some Nobel hopeful.
When he was twenty, he watched the other faculty members make impromptu plans to go to a pub to catch the World Series playoff game, laughing and teasing each other about whose team would kick whose ass. He had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that Dr. Brunner's favorite for the pennant was as statistically likely to win as a meteor falling from the sky in the middle of the game and taking out first base. When Dr. Fieldstone asked Charlie if he wanted to come along, Charlie politely reminded him that he wasn't old enough to drink alcohol and he had a test to prepare for tomorrow's class anyway.
Even at twenty, Charlie knew that some invitations hurt more to accept than to turn down.
o.o
Sometimes, Charlie wishes he wasn't a genius. That he was normal. That he was just 'one of the guys'.
But when Charlie was thirty-five, he was called to the federal building in Los Angeles by a voice he wasn't familiar with and told that his brother and his brother's team were being held hostage by a terrorist cell that had attacked an elementary school and was there some kind of mathematical miracle he knew of that could help them find a way to get everyone out alive?
And the only thing Charlie wished that day was that he would never have to find out what it was like to be anything but a genius.