Author:DreamBrother
Summary:(Summer Alphabet Challenge 2007) A little innocent fun, is all.
Disclaimer:Numb3rs isn't mine
Author's Note:Credit to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for re-igniting my muse and giving me a title. Their song, Snow, just randomly popped up on a music channel and voila! Magic
Also, I know nothing about the workings of the Quantico academy, it's all tweaked for my benefit, bear with me. And also, I do not know American weather. Man, what happened to writing what you know?
S is for Snores and Snow
"Don! Wake up! Come on, wake up!" came the frantic voice of Charlie, piercing through the fabric of sleep to enter Don's consciousness. The agent in him immediately tried to assess any threat or danger before his mind and body could even get their bearings.
"Calm down, bro, everything's fine," said Charlie's voice but in a completely different tone this time, sounding amused instead of frantic.
Confused, Don lifted his head from his pillow and half-opened his eyes to peek blearily at his little brother who was hovering over him, "Charlie? What the hell? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong bro, I just want you to get up, it's snowing!" said Charlie excitedly, grinning widely.
Snowing? In sunny California? Man, we should have listened to Al Gore talking about the dangers of global warming more carefully…, though Don before remembering that he and Charlie were in Virginia, having been invited by the FBI academy in Quantico to give a few lectures to the New Agents in Training, about the use of math in solving everyday crimes, Don and Charlie balancing each other to give a well-rounded analysis.
"Charlie, it's-" Don paused to peer at his travel alarm clock, eyes heavily laden with sleep and wanting nothing more than to return to the land of dreams,"-six in the morning. And you woke me up to tell me it's snowing?" asked Don incredulously, too surprised to work up a glare to direct at Charlie.
"No. I also want you to get up and get dressed so we can go outside," said Charlie eagerly.
Don stared at his brother for a few seconds, confirming that the specimen before him was indeed his thirty year old brother and not an illusion of a much younger Charlie. Thinking perhaps Charlie had regressed to the behaviour of a child, he asked, "Charlie, did you hit your head recently?"
Now it was Charlie's turn to look confused as he frowned, "No, why do you ask?"
Don ignored his brother's question, instead choosing to ask another of his own, "Is somebody after you trying to kill you and/or is your life threatened in any way?"
Charlie's frown deepened, "No-"
"Is the world coming to an end?" asked Don just as seriously as he'd asked his previous questions.
"What? Don, no! Are you feeling alright?" asked Charlie, now in concern.
"I'm fine. You're the one who's worrying me. So, unless your life is in danger or the world is coming to an end, the latter of which I can't even do anything about, I suggest you let me sleep," stated Don, turning his back to his brother and hitching his blanket up a little higher, attempting to get back to sleep.
Not to be deterred, Charlie rounded his brother's bed and faced him again, saying, "Come on Don, we've only got a few hours before our flight back home, we hardly see snow, let's go outside."
Thinking that he would dearly love to take his brother 'outside', he took a deep breath and reasoned with his brother as only a big brother could, "Charlie. For the past three nights your snoring has kept me awake. And that's saying something considering I've gone on stake outs with the world's worst snorers. So either you let me sleep, or we're going to have to go outside and have a few rounds and I think we both know who's going to be the victor." Don could be very verbose when his sleep was threatened.
"Your threats of physical force do not worry me, I'm faster than you, and I'll run away and take refuge," Charlie replied, "How about this? You get up and get dressed now, not only will I let you have the window seat on the way back home, I promise not to sleep on the plane and so keep you awake with my snores. I'll spring for breakfast and lunch as well, being the awesome brother that I am."
"More like an awesome pain in the ass," mumbled Don into the pillow.
"What was that?" asked Charlie curiously.
"Nothing. I accept your terms, now go get me coffee while I shower and get dressed. You better have left me enough hot water," grumbled Don, forcing himself out of his comfortable, warm bed to shuffle towards his travel bag to take out a change of clothes.
"No matter how much hot water I leave, it's never enough for you, bro," replied Charlie.
Don stopped in his tracks to glare at his brother, "Coffee. Now."
"Yes sir!" said Charlie, adding a mock salute before turning on his heels and exiting, leaving a bemused brother behind.
Shaking his head at his brother's childish behaviour, Don tried to think back to any point in their past when Charlie had reacted this way to snow, before suddenly realizing that he and Charlie had never been in a snowy area together before. Charlie would have had seen his first snowfall when he went to Princeton in New Jersey with their Mum, and Don had seen enough to last a lifetime during his training at Quantico as well as during his Fugitive Recovery days. As kids, they had never been on many family vacations, with all the extra money having gone towards paying for special tutors for Charlie, least of all going on a vacation somewhere where it would have snowed. Feeling a bit subdued by the fact that, as brothers, he and Charlie had never enjoyed the innocent side of snow together, Don went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Plenty of time to have some fun now, Don thought.
ALLREADERSFROMACROSSTHEPONDHAPPY4THOFJULY!
After having finished his coffee and reasonably awake and refreshed, Don stepped outside into the open space in front of their motel room, surprised to see that during the night, quite a lot of snow had accumulated. Charlie tagged behind him and stood in the middle of the space, staring up at the sky as though expecting snowflakes to fall by silent command:
"Did you know it can take up to an hour for a snowflake to reach the ground after falling from a clo-," began Charlie but before he could finish what he was saying, he was interrupted by the actions of his brother, who looked at him calmly and asked:
"Did you know it takes less than a second for a snowball to travel from my hand to hit you in the face a few feet away?" Don grinned as his brother continued to stare at him in shock, the remnants of the snowball still on his face and hair. Deciding it was his duty as a big brother to shake his brother out of his unhealthy stupor; Don bent down and packed another snowball in his hands and launched it at his brother, this time hitting him square in the chest.
"Don!" exclaimed Charlie before a dark look came into his eyes, "You. Did. Not. Just. Do. That!"
"Do what, Chuck? This?" asked Don, letting loose another snowball, again aiming for Charlie's face.
Charlie stood there and calmly wiped the offending snow away from his eyes, "Alright. If that's the way you want it bro, bring it on. Just remember, you started it."
"Oh don't you worry about me, buddy. You're the one about to face off against a former baseball player," Don advised, rising to the challenge. This was going to be fun.
NOSNAKESBUTSNORESONAPLANEDARLINGS
Don smiled to himself as he slipped on the headphones provided by the airline onto his ears, having decided which movie he was going to watch on the tiny screen in front of him, as he sat in the plane headed back to Los Angeles. Sitting next to him was his brother, fast asleep with his head resting against Don's shoulder, using it as a pillow, snoring away obliviously. Charlie had put up a valiant fight in the morning in the snowball face-off but he was no match for his big brother and wiped out by the 'exercise', he had fallen asleep soon after the plane had taken off. Silently wishing his fellow passengers good luck for tolerating his brother's loud snores, Don made himself comfortable as he settled back into his seat to watch the movie, having already plotted his revenge for Charlie's infringement of their early-morning agreement.
Khatum (The End)
I really wanted to write an angst story but no plot bunny for that yet, while I had this one in my head, just waiting, taking up space. So, a bit wonky this one. And who in the world writes a winter story in the middle of summer? Well, I never said all my screws were screwed on tight.
Hope you liked this wonky tale. Reviews would be nice. If I'm still in one piece after my first driving lesson today (or tomorrow?), I'll see if I can get an angsty bunny.