AN: So, my first attempt delving in to the world of Numb3rs. I also haven't written in quite a while, so be gentle.
I would like to offer an extraordinary amount of thanks to t_vo0810 of LJ for betaing and being an amazing muse.

WARNING: for incest, angst, underage sex, addiction, and Don's mouth (in my head, he's got the stereotypical cop mouth).

Charlie would like the Program, simply for its numbers, if not for the fact that it was saving him from a pervert.

There were the famous Twelve Steps, then the Ten Points, and the ethical Four Absolutes. They'd never been much of a 'God' family, so Don focused on the Four Absolutes in an attempt to avoid any messy spiritual issues. Though he may have to fudge them over every now and again.

000

Absolute honesty — no lying, no cheating, no stealing. In a word, in all your affairs, simply and absolutely no falsehood.

000

"Shit." That summed it up quite nicely. He was standing outside a shitty building, filled with shitty people, drinking shitty coffee, staring at one of the last persons he wanted to see in this rather shitty situation.

Don followed Megan's gaze to the sign next to him, proudly displaying 'All Addicts Anonymous Meeting — 7 PM.' Yep, he was officially cock deep in shit.

Megan shifted the paper bag in her arms and waited for the signal to cross the street. Options. He needed options. The truth? God, no. Don valued his job and the relationship he has built with his agents. And his testicles. Don valued them, too, and would like to keep them right where they were.

Run? Yeah, running was certainly an option. An awfully tempting one. But Megan had damn good eyes and she was getting closer. He could pretend he didn't see her, walk away, duck into an alley and hide behind a dumpster for a few hours. He could play it cool tomorrow at the office. 'Me? You saw me? Nah, Megan, wasn't me. Really, how many Caucasian, five foot ten inch, brunette males do you think there are in L. A.? No, I went bowling last night. ...You saw my car?'

Megan gave him a smile and waved with her free hand. So, with the exception of channeling Obi-wan, this is not the Eppes you're looking for, there's one option left.

"Hi, Don," Megan said with a faux casual voice.

Don't sound suspicious, don't seem anxious. "Hey. What are you doing here?"

"Forgot that I ran out of cream this morning." Cream? Cream would be his downfall? "You?"

"Oh, just meeting an old informant who might be able to give me something on a cold case." Don winced mentally, because that excuse seemed strangely similar to I have this friend...

Megan carefully raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're meeting an informant here?"

"It is anonymous," He joked and ground his teeth.

"Without back-up?"

Don gave her the smile he reserved for conspiracy theorists who he really needed to cooperate with him. "Really, Megan, it's not a big deal."

"Mm-hmm." Don prayed she'll go away. "Does the Bureau know?" And decided God was deaf.

"Megan..."

"Are you all right, Don?"

Don sighed and wondered why they hadn't given her a cool nickname, like Pitbull. "Yeah. Yeah, Megan, I'm fine. And the Bureau doesn't know, because there's nothing to know. I took care of this," he waved a hand at the sign and building, "before there was ever any legal involvement. I only go to one of these things every once in a while as a reminder. You know, like going to the gym."

She nodded and stared at him, reading him. Profiling him, he thought with a subtle shiver. "So, you didn't...?"

He huffed a laugh. "No, my wagon's still rolling on strong."

"Okay," she gave him an affectionate tap on the arm. She turned to walk away and cut off his next sentence before he could open his mouth. "You don't need to tell me to keep this between us, boss."

Sometimes, Don wished he was just an alcoholic.

000

Absolute purity — purity of mind, purity of body, purity of the emotions, purity of heart, sexual purity.

000

Don loved his brother. He always has and always will.

It started before Charlie was even born, and sometimes he wondered if there was any way he could blame it on his parents.

When they found out about the baby, well before they knew Charlie was going to be Charlie, his mom and dad sat him down and explained, as clearly as they could to a five-year-old, that he was getting a sibling and that the new baby was in mommy's tummy.

"You ate my brother?!" had been his first concern. When they figured out how to expand the explanation, Don moved on to his second. "When do I get him?" By the second trimester, his parents stopped trying to convince him that he could be getting a little sister instead.

While her belly grew with Charlie inside, his mom always kept Don involved in his little brother's developing life. He went to most of the appointments with her and he was sitting on his father's knee the first time he listened to his brother's heart beat through the stethoscope. In the afternoons, when he came home from pre-school, his mom would lay back on the couch and sit him in her lap. He would press his ear to her swollen stomach and wait for his brother to know he was home.

"He's yours," his mom would say. "He's your baby brother and he's the only one you'll ever have. So you have to protect and love him forever, right Donnie?" And he would nod with all the severity of a man with a mission.

He knew she was only trying to help, trying to diffuse sibling jealousy before it began, but all she did was inevitably make the situation worse.

Still, Don protected his brother in every way. He kept Charlie away from the strangers at the park, who always had a pocket full of candy and an eye on his little brother. He became the terror of the playground, chasing away school yard bullies with their tail between their legs. He prided himself in being the only one who could drag Charlie away from the overwhelming numbers.

And Don loved his brother, in every way.

Soon enough, however, he realized there were some ways that he shouldn't.

Around the same time that he started noticing girls along with all of his friends, Don also started noticing his brother. It was innocent little things at first, like how Charlie's laugh made Don feel deliriously giddy. Or how his chest swelled each time he saw Charlie scrunch his nose at his dreaded nickname. Until one day, during a particularly vicious noogie, he couldn't help but feel how soft Charlie's curls were. And he had the fleeting thought of what it would feel like to bury his face in Charlie's hair and take in his scent.

When he had that first dream featuring his baby brother's curls and wide, dark eyes, he spent five minutes retching into his waste basket as quietly as he could. After, he decided adding some distance was all he could really do and hoped he wasn't too late.

It was for the best, he would tell himself each time he caught a glimpse of his brother's look of betrayal and hurt. It wasn't right, he thought every time he felt the familiar pool of warmth in his belly.

He still kept an eye on Charlie, still chased away the bullies. But there were no more touches, no more wrestling, no more games. Mom and Dad attributed it to him simply being a teenager and, in a way, they certainly weren't wrong. He heard them trying to explain it to Charlie one day, heard them say that he was growing up, that he needed to play with the older kids, and that he needed space.

Don would close his eyes at night and pray that space was all he needed.

000

Absolute unselfishness — seeking what is right and true in every situation above what I want.

000

They grew a bit closer during their college years, despite the distance, or perhaps because of it. They talked on the phone often, Don sharing his side of college life with occasionally illicit details and Charlie explaining the awesomeness that was the Princeton computer lab. And Don would never admit to the jealousy that burned in his chest when Charlie would start a conversation with 'You know what Professor Fleinhardt said today?' So long as he made sure they were never in the same room alone during the holidays, Don was certain he had found the perfect way to keep his little brother close while safely on the other side of the country.

Until Don came home for summer break after his sophomore year.

Often, they would take a small vacation as a family sometime during the summer. That year, however, their mom and dad had decided to go on a cruise themselves. A way to reconnect after spending so much time separated. Which meant they were expecting him to care for Charlie. Which meant Don would be home alone with Charlie.

"Try to have a good time with your brother, Donnie," Dad said as Charlie hugged their mom. "Try to make sure he has a good time. Don't let him spend all day with his work."

Don held back the shiver at all the possible good times his mind was supplying. "I'll try Dad, promise."

"There'll be a cherry pie in it for you when we come back," Mom whispered with a wink and kissed him goodbye.

He waved as they drove off, before turning to Charlie. His little brother gazed back at him with an expectant look. "You know we're stuck with leftovers and take-out for the next two weeks, right?"

Charlie smiled and Don's chest tightened. "You haven't learned how to make a sandwich yet?"

"Yeah, sure buddy." Don smirked. "That's the thing with bread?"

The first day passed without any problems. The second, Charlie almost gave him a heart attack when he walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth while Don was showering. On the third, Don wondered why he believed so strongly in hell, despite his Jewish heritage, and why it had decided to visit earth.

It was hot. Scorching, actually, because it was June and it was California, so do the math. Or not. Charlie had that covered.

"...they call it sacred geometry and you can see how it forms a six-fold symmetry, like a hexagon, you know. And Larry — he says I can call him Larry now, isn't that so cool? Anyway, Larry — I swear he should have been an epistemologist with all the philosophy he's always spinning — he says that it actually has ties to Kabbalah, right. Because it depicts the basis of the layout found in the Metatron's cube..."

Don stared in one part awe, two parts horror as his little brother rambled on excitedly about what he'd learned from the amazing Professor call me Larry Fleinhardt. Don understood maybe every other word or so, and he probably would be fighting back the well known feelings of jealousy if he weren't so...distracted.

"...and when you divide the sides using the Golden Ratio, you can draw in the lines to form the dodecahedron on the two-dimensional cube. But with the platonic solids — and you know they're just convex regular polyhedrons, right? Anyway, you get the three-dimensional analogs of the regular polygons. All five of them! Five, Don!"

They were in the garage and Charlie was eagerly drawing circles, triangles, and lines, connecting them into patterns that weren't even vaguely familiar. What Don was focused on, however, was his little brother's barely clad body. He had foregone a shirt and was wearing a pair of swimming shorts that he apparently hadn't tried on since his fifteen year old body had started its growth spurt.

"...and I knew math was everywhere in nature and society, you know, like with the engineering of our cities. But in theology, too? Isn't it awesome? Don?"

They were going to go to the beach. They had only come in to grab the fold-up lawn chairs, but Charlie had seen his old chalk boards calling out to him and somehow had ended up teaching Don about something called the Flower of Life. So, God knows why, Don had planted his ass in one of the lawn chairs and watched his brother smudge chalk over his hands and flutter along the board like a humming bird on speed. And if his eyes occasionally trailed a bead of sweat from the ends of Charlie's curls to the small dip of his back, well...that was no cause for concern.

Maybe the beach wasn't such a good idea. Don didn't think he could handle the image of a soaking wet Charlie right now.

"Donnie? You okay?"

Fuck, this is how a druggie felt in a pharmacy, wasn't it? His fiery blood coursed a blackened trail in his veins, his hands itched with the urge to touch. His skin felt tight and his chest burned with the breaths that he couldn't seem to control.

"Don?"

There were dark brown eyes so much like his own staring at him, wide and earnest, and plump, pink lips forming his name. And really, what kind of God could have expected him to be able to resist that?

Charlie fell backwards from his crouched position in front of Don, landing on his backside with an audible oomph. At first, Don was certain he'd imagined it. It was just a flash of a fantasy brought on by delirium from the heat. He couldn't have actually done what he thought he did, because he'd sworn he never would. But he watched as Charlie's eyes grew impossibly wide, a shaky hand reaching up to touch the lips that Don didn't just violate.

He tripped over the lawn chair in his haste to get out of the garage, Charlie's bemused whisper of his name echoing in his ears.

They didn't talk about it, because that's how the Eppes brothers solved their problems best. Don skirted around Charlie, avoiding the slightest of touches and only flashing him the tightest of smiles. He could see the hurt and confusion in his little brother's eyes, but with it was a dangerous curiosity that left him breathless. But they didn't talk about it.

Even when Charlie visited his bedroom on the seventh night.

Don was paralyzed with anticipation, his eyes tracking his brother's every move from where he sat on the edge of Don's bed. Later, he could blame his shaking on the cool night air against his bare chest.

"It's all right," Charlie said, as he leaned over and pressed those lips to Don's, before moving to straddle his lap.

Don remembered the metaphorical shoulder devils and angels that were so popular in cartoons, one urging their charge down the path righteousness and the other whispering seductive, forbidden pleasures. Right about then, he imagined his devil would be waving its pitchfork about, screaming 'Fuck self control!' The angel was suspiciously silent.

"Don?" Charlie asked when he realized he wasn't responding to the kiss.

He squirmed under Charlie, trying to get away from the pressure his brother was putting on his growing erection. "T-this, fuck, Charlie. This is bad, all right. I mean, w-we really, really can't be doing this."

Charlie's brow furrowed in confusion. "But, you want to, don't you?"

"I want. I- God, yes, I want to." Don squeezed his eyes shut, hoping the temptation would disappear, because this just wasn't fucking fair.

"Good. I want to, too," Charlie stated as if that solved everything. He opened his eyes when he felt Charlie settle himself more firmly in Don's lap, a blush staining his cheeks when he felt the evidence of Don's want.

"You don't, Charlie. You don't know what you want, you're just a kid."

"I'm not a kid." That may have been more convincing without the pout. "I'm not, and I know what I want. I want to be with you."

Charlie leaned in for a kiss once more, and this time Don couldn't help but agree with the shoulder devil. He parted his lips, allowing Charlie to hesitantly explore, and reached up with a shaky hand to grasp his brother's slim hips. He toyed with the fabric of Charlie's pajama shirt, noting how the skin underneath felt hot and smooth. Charlie separated their mouths with a gasp, and Don could see the dilated pupils that had turned his brother's eyes black.

"Breathe through your nose." Charlie stared at him, confused. "When your kissing, try to breathe through your nose, so you're not panting like a dog after." Don stroked Charlie's sides soothingly and pulled his brother back down against him.

Charlie followed his advice and tried to take a few steadying breaths as they kissed. Don felt a slender hand moving down his chest and stomach, before stopping at his waistband. Charlie pulled back to look at Don with a questioning gaze. "Is this okay?"

"Anything you want," Don said, because he had to give his little brother at least that much control. He took a deep breath, his hands twitching against Charlie's skin with the urge to grab. "Just uh, just do whatever you're comfortable with, okay buddy?"

Charlie smiled and slid himself farther down Don's body, until he could feel Charlie's own erection pressing against his thigh. Slowly, Charlie's fingers breached Don's pajamas and explored until they found his arousal. His brother boldly wrapped his hand around it, and Don couldn't help the low, rumbling groan the escaped him. "Can I...?" Charlie tugged at his pants.

Don got out a choked "yeah," before lifting his hips and shimmying his pajamas down to his thighs.

When his erection came free, Charlie sent Don another questioning look, a silent 'Like this?', before he reached for Don's cock, wrapping it in a loose grip and exploring with his fingers. Charlie traced the vein on the underside, before moving up to feel along the thick head. Don bit back a moan and had to close his eyes as Charlie's fascinated gaze locked onto the pearl of liquid coming from the tip. He was still half hoping this was just a dream, really. That when he opened his eyes, he'd be alone and not taking a piece of his baby brother's innocence.

He pressed his head back into the pillows, fighting the desire to thrust and scaring his brother. Don felt Charlie's grip suddenly become much firmer and opened his eyes to see Charlie's focus had switched onto Don's face, avidly watching his expressions. "Fuck, Charlie," he moaned. Charlie's strokes quickened in pace and, God it was embarrassing, but he didn't think he'd last much longer. Not when his fantasies had become all too real, not with Charlie touching him, straddling him, and moaning right along with him. Don choked on Charlie's name as the familiar warmth spread through his belly and groin. He pushed up into his brother's fist as he came, before sinking back into his bed, sated.

Distantly, as if his head were underwater, he could hear Charlie panting. He looked down at Charlie, who was still holding Don in his semen covered hand. Don reached down and pulled Charlie up his body until he could meet him in a deep kiss. A virgin's blush overtook Charlie's face, when Don slid his hand down and found the sticky mess in his brother's pajama bottoms.

"It's okay," he comforted with a smile. "It's pretty fucking cool, actually."

Charlie huffed out a laugh, before tucking his head under Don's chin and settling on top of him. Don wrapped his arms around his little brother, feeling content and guilty all at once.

When he gets back to school, he's changing his major to criminal justice. Don's never really read the Tanakh, except for the required passages for the bar mitzvahs dad insisted he and Charlie have, but he's pretty sure Catholics don't have the monopoly on penitence.

000

Absolute love — loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

000

Don paid an abnormal amount of attention to his Abnormal Psychology class, so he knew without a doubt there's no such thing as consensual incest.

So when he came home after a long day of studiously avoiding Megan's concerned looks — only to see Charlie sitting on his floor reading pamphlets and notes, Don's program chips spread about in a mess — thoughts of what he'd done to his little brother made his stomach roil in disgust and need.

"Charlie, what the fuck?" Anger and defensiveness were a bit of a default reaction when it came to his brother. "Do you seriously not know the meaning of personal space?" Don stormed over and crouched next to Charlie, careful to avoid any physical contact. He righted the box Charlie had eagerly turned over and started gathering up the papers and plastic circles his brother had surrounded himself with.

"Thirteen years, at least, right? I uh, I don't know what all of these tokens mean, but I'm pretty sure those are for each year you're in the, the program," Charlie spat out the last word like a curse.

Don groaned and pushed away the box that housed his shame. He leaned against the wall and slid the rest of the way to the floor, sitting a few inches away from Charlie. "Megan?" He was demoting her to desk duty tomorrow.

Charlie shrugged, not the least bit repentant. "She thought we already knew."

Don felt his heart skip a beat. "We?" God, if Dad found out...

"I already told her not to say a word to him, Don."

He let out a relieved sigh. Small mercies, then. At this point, that was about all he could ask for. "So...?" He waited anxiously for the questions he knew he wasn't going to be able to avoid.

"...How come they're all composites?"

Don blinked. "Huh?"

"The steps and points and absolutes and everything. Why do people always have to focus on even numbers like them? They're so...fat."

"What?" Did he miss something?

"I mean it." And dear God, Charlie actually sounded indignant. "They're so round and bloated and, for some reason, people love them! But primes —"

Don rolled his eyes. "Right, your beloved building blocks."

"— they're nice and sleek, and much more manageable. But unless they happen to be studying Euclid in history or something, people almost completely ignore prime numbers. I mean, why can't there be seven steps, five points, and three absolutes?"

Don stared at his brother, but really, why had he been expecting anything else from Charlie? "Are we seriously having this conversation, Chuck?"

"Do you seriously want a serious conversation? Because, you tend to try to avoid those."

"I do not!"

Charlie leveled him with a stare that was half mom's I know you ate those cookies in bed and half dad's you're working for the government?! "You still won't even talk to me about the life you had while you were away. Like Kim," he added pointedly.

Don hid a wince. Kim, who was everything Charlie wasn't and nothing that he was, still was not a discussion he wanted to have with his little brother. "Damn it, Charlie, there's nothing to talk about. You already know what happened."

"Because," Charlie laced the word with a heavy amount of brotherly annoyance, "I went snooping through your stuff and figured it out myself." Charlie waved a hand at the mess he'd made with a pointed look. Don leaned his head against the wall and went through nearly every supposedly helpful breathing technique he'd learned at therapy. "Is that Lamaze?"

"No."

"Okay." Charlie allowed him to quietly complete his not-Lamaze for a minute. "I'm just wondering, you do remember that I was the one that climbed on to your lap, right?"

"Fuck."

"Yes, that did come after."

He glared at his brother. "Not even funny."

Charlie's lips twitched upward, unfortunately bringing Don's attention to them. "It was a little."

"God, Charlie! You know what that was, don't you? It was statutory rape, at the least. It was abuse, i-it was," he hesitated at the dreaded i word, but forged on, knowing he had to make Charlie understand. "Fuck, Charlie, it was incest, all right?"

"What the hell is so wrong about that? In fact, I remember it being the norm for the first couple thousand years of civilization, before we realized the biological ramifications. And let me tell you Donnie, you may be good, but I don't see you getting me pregnant any time soon." His glare rolled off of Charlie with ease. "And I really don't know if I'll ever be able to convince you that what we did was consensual, but... You know, I'm not fifteen anymore, Don."

"Yeah. And?"

Charlie gave him a look that made Don feel like he was missing something important and Charlie was hoping he'd use the intelligence that had gotten him into the FBI. When all he did was stare, his brother gave a long-suffering sigh. "That means I'm not letting you run away when the summer's over this time."

Don held himself still when Charlie leaned over, pushing aside the papers and program chips, and pressed his lips to Don's. When it became apparent that Charlie wasn't going to pull back any time soon, Don sighed against his brother's mouth and parted his lips. Charlie surged onward, forcing Don to meet him in a kiss that left him breathless by the end of it.

"I thought I was a pedophile," he said after, because isn't that just fucking romantic.

Charlie stared. "A pedo— Pardon?"

"When we were younger, especially after that summer, that's what I thought. I mean, when you're a kid, in school they had you go to those safety lectures, right? Stranger Danger and everything, remember? But it's not until you're older that you learn why you should stay away from them and, even then, they sure as hell don't tell you that it's not just the strangers that are dangerous."

"Don, you weren't a danger."

"When I learned that word," he continued without hearing Charlie, "I don't even remember how old I was. But when I learned the word pedophile, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time I looked at you, it was right there in my head. But then I learned that pedophiles, they have a certain fantasy that the children they target fit into and the fantasy doesn't grow with the kids. I kind of felt cheated, like I didn't even have anything to label myself as anymore. Because if I was just a pedophile, ideally, I would have stopped wanting you at some point."

Charlie looked confused and maybe a little sick. "You wanted to be a pedophile?"

Don shrugged helplessly. "I just wanted to know what was wrong with me, Charlie. Because even now, in all my experience dealing with some pretty fucked up people, I still don't know what to call this."

"I kinda just thought it was called love."

Really, it couldn't be held against Don if he felt just a little bitter at Charlie's naiveté. "Right, Chuck, that's all this is. Just an extreme case of fraternal love."

"Well, yeah."

God, if there was ever a time to smack his little brother upside the head. "Charlie —"

"Don, I love you. I love you in every way possible. Point blank, end of discussion. And yeah, it may have taken seeing how much you love me to realize that I felt the same, but that doesn't make it any less true. It doesn't mean that the love wasn't already there in the first place. I admit, maybe I was too young when I pushed for more in our relationship, and I don't blame you for getting scared and running off afterwards. But you can't use that excuse this time. It's been over a decade now, Don. I've had other relationships, I have experience. I know what I want and I know what I'm asking from you."

And, well...Don didn't quite know what to say to that. But, Charlie was the genius of the family. "You know you've ruined over fourteen years of sobriety, right?"

Charlie smiled and leaned in to press his lips against Don's. "Wanna celebrate?"

So, maybe he'll talk with Merrick tomorrow about getting Megan a raise.