Fic!

[rillalicious]

Fandom: Numb3rs
Title: Better Things
Pairing: Colby/David
Rating: NC17
Word Count: ~3450
Warnings: Happy ending.
Summary: He doesn't really want to tell David how he's been. Not sleeping. Not eating. Pretending it's cool that David is suddenly just gone.
A/N: Thanks ellensmithee for the read through! Takes place during Friendly Fire, Cause and Effect, and thereafter. I own nothing you recognize.




Before

Just outside the restaurant, David pushes Colby up against the wall in the dark alley.

"You sure this is a good idea?"

"She'll never know," Colby says, and he feels a little cocky about it. David's not so convinced.

"You up for another wager?" David asks.

"And what's that gonna be? Who blows who when we get home tonight?"

"Whom."

"Whatever."

"No." David shoots him that slow, easy smile. "I've got something better in mind."

"You want me to make a bet and you're not even gonna tell me the stakes?"

"Don't you trust me, Granger?"

"That's a loaded question, you think?"

"Just a little. Come on. We wouldn't want Betancourt to think we stood her up."

"You know," says Colby, "she might be in there with a date."

"Yeah. Right." David presses against him, hard, then lets up. "Let's go."

Colby waits just a second, hands fisted by his sides because he wants to grab David's jacket and drag him back here. He exhales, it passes, and he follows David into the restaurant. Because federal agents don't blow each other in a dark alley twenty feet away from a well-lit parking lot.

Just inside the doors, a man and woman are nuzzling each other while waiting for a table. He looks around to see that everyone is there in pairs. He's starting to think this wasn't a good idea after all. They're taking too many chances in the name of a stupid office bet. And then they see Farmar walking out.

"If she's not onto us by the end of the night," David murmurs, so close to Colby's ear that Colby swears he can feel David's lips on his skin, "you get to sleep over at my place."

They pause for effect, then stroll over to the table, making sure to point out the obvious.

"It looks like we're Dutch tonight," says Nikki.

Colby pulls out the chair. "I'm going to have to disagree. I'd like you to meet my date, Agent David Sinclair..."

After

Colby wants to crawl out of the suit and his own skin by the time they get to David's apartment. Beneath all the antics and obfuscating banter, it all felt too much like something real, too much like something that will never happen.

"Stupid fucking games," he says, and he throws David up against the wall.

"What's got into you?" David asks, through half a smile. The other half of his mouth is pressed against Colby's lips as they struggle out of their clothes.

"That didn't seem a little bit ridiculous to you?"

"Well, yeah, but it was your idea. And it was worth a free meal. Isn't that one of your favorite things?" David's hands are on his ass and Colby rubs against him.

"Not that part. It was..." Colby begins, but the words won't settle on his tongue in the right order. And just like all the times before, it's impossible to think with David's mouth just below his ear, and David's cock pressed hard against his thigh.

"It was like this is a joke," he says finally. He digs his fingers into David's shoulders. There, now it's out.

David pulls back suddenly, freezes. Everything freezes. "Colby, it's not like that."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah." David's palm is on his cheek, fingers splaying over his ear. "This isn't a joke. Not to me."

"How often do we shut it off, David? Every time we walk into the office? Every time we're on a stake out? I wasn't kidding, what I told Nikki. We're married to the job, I know that. That's why this works. There aren't any expectations." He's not even sure if he's still making sense. "Tonight..." He rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "That was a weird in-between thing," he says, finally giving up.

"Weird in-between thing."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't," David kicks off his shoes and steps out of his pants.

Colby sighs. "There's on the job, and then there's this, and tonight was... it wasn't either one."

"You looked like you were having a pretty good time." David smiles.

Colby rolls his head away, but returns a grin of his own. "Yeah. Well. I was lookin' forward to getting back here."

"Then where's the problem?"

Colby thinks about that for a moment. Where is the problem? David is naked and warm and his bed is right down the fucking hall, and Colby's carrying on like they're in... a relationship. But Colby doesn't want a relationship. He wants David. Right now. Just like this.

"Who said anything about a problem?"

And before David can answer, Colby's mouth is on his. Long, slow kisses on the way to the bedroom as they grope along the wall and stumble across doorways. Somewhere in between Colby manages to shed the rest of his clothes. He's never felt anything as good as David's hands on his body. David braces his arm on the bedroom door, stops Colby from pulling him in.

"What?"

David just stands there for a moment, smiles. "Just wanted," words scattered between kisses, "to hold on for a minute."

Colby slides his fingers along David's jaw, cradles his face and pulls him in close for a deeper kiss, walking him back toward the bed.

The best part about staying at David's place is the bed. David's bed is bigger than Colby's, the mattress is in nicer shape, and it just feels better. Colby doesn't know if this is because it is a better bed or because it belongs to David, but he never sleeps as well as he does when he's here. At the moment, he has no interest in sleep. They pull each other down to the bed, all roaming hands and mouths, and heavy, impatient breaths.

Colby flattens out to look up at David.

"You just love to be on your back, don't you, Granger?"

Colby grins with half his mouth. "Since I'm the one who does all the work out on the street, I figure this is my chance to take it easy."

"All the work, right?" David says. "Uh huh."

David's fingers close around his cock and he shivers.

"Just for that, I should make you work for it tonight," says David.

"Work for it how?" He won't admit it, but Colby likes the sound of that.

"I'm gonna make you beg."

"Oh yeah?" Colby says. There's no way he's letting David know how close he is to begging already. Maybe if he didn't already know what it feels like when David fucks him... But he does and it's good. No, better. It's perfect.

"Yeah." David draws one fingertip up the underside of Colby's cock, the barest touch, and Colby shivers all over. David laughs. "Give it up, Granger."

"Oh, I'll give it up all right."

Suddenly, David's head is out of sight, and the next thing Colby feels is David's mouth, grazing over his balls. The heat of David's breath is heavier than the weight of his lips, and Colby wants more. He bites down on his bottom lip, fists his hands in the comforter. David's tongue flickers out, catching a drop of precome, teasing the base of Colby's prick, skating along the inside of his thigh.

"You got quiet, Granger."

"Mmmhmm."

"You want me to stop?"

The noise Colby makes is hoarse and guttural and restrained, because he's trying hard to keep the word from spilling over too soon, but when David starts to pull away, it tumbles out anyway.

"Please."

"That's what I wanted to hear. Please what?"

"You dick." Colby laughs, but the sound is strained because he's hard to the point of distraction and David's mouth is rightfuckingthere but not close enough.

"I thought this conversation was about your dick."

"You're killin' me."

Then David's tongue slides flatly up Colby's prick and he's whimpering. "Please that."

"This?" More tongue, and the soft press of David's lips, and then the grazing of teeth--barely enough to feel, but oh, God, enough to make Colby's spine run hot with electricity--as David slides his mouth down Colby's cock.

"Oh, that's... fuck."

David murmurs something that might have been "getting there", but Colby doesn't care what it was because the sound tightens and vibrates through the back of David's throat, where Colby's prick is lodged, and Colby has to brace his hands on the back of David's head to keep from bucking right off the bed.

"Fuck me," he breathes, because it's about to be over too soon. "Before you bring me off. Wanna come while you're fucking me."

So David does. He pushes Colby's body up the bed to the pillows, grabs the lube--which, for some reason, is always harder to locate at Colby's place--and then Colby's ass is giving way for David's fingers, and they're slick and fucking perfect. When David's cock is inside him, Colby arches up, and he wants more because it's never enough. Watching David fuck him is one of the best things he can imagine.

And fuck, coming with David, when it happens with dead-on timing like it does tonight, takes him apart.

"Jesus," Colby says, his voice thin with exhaustion. The weight of David, collapsed on Colby's chest and panting in time with Colby's heartbeat, is like a measurement of security. Then David rolls off him and it's gone.

David kisses him, more of those sweet, long, deep kisses, but the urgency is gone now, and they grow sleepy and lazy with their lips pressed together. Finally David falls away.

"Blue sheets," Colby murmurs, recognizing them by the touch of his cheek against the pillow alone. "I like the blue sheets best."

David is already asleep.

~@~@~@~

Before

"I need to talk to the rest of the team. Together."

Colby tucks his phone away and walks over to Liz's desk, giving her a nudge.

"Hey. David's outside and he says he needs to talk to us."

Liz presses her lips together, amused, and gets to her feet slowly. "What did you do, Granger? Get us sent to the principal's office?"

Colby holds up his hands in innocence. "Wasn't me, I swear."

"Right," says Liz. "Come on."

Nikki isn't around, but Colby figures it's good enough. Whatever's happened in the investigation, she can get caught up when she'd done with the LAPD.

And then David makes his announcement and Colby knows why it was so important to David for Liz and Nikki to be there too. He can't breathe; why the hell is David asking him a question like that? Are we cool? No. Nothing's cool about this.

"We had to break up sometime. People were starting to talk." What the fuck else is he supposed to say? He smiles stupidly anyway.

David touches him, but he feels like a stranger.


After

"What the hell was that? You were using Liz as a buffer?"

David is quiet for a long time, staring out the driver's side window. "I didn't know how else to tell you."

"Jesus Christ, David."

"Colby, I'm sorry. This is... It's my career."

"Yeah. I got it."

"I thought it would be easier that way."

Colby lets his head fall back against the headrest. "Easier for you? Yeah, looks like it was."

"Colby..."

"I stayed for you," Colby says. "When I could've gone to D.C., I stayed for you. And you know what? You wouldn't even look at me for weeks." He presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. "I stayed anyway."

"You're the one who's always saying the job comes first," says David. "It was a hell of an opportunity. Did you really want this to be serious?"

"I'm not talking about serious," Colby says, even though he is. That's not the most important thing. "I'm talking about permanent."

Silence.

The car is overcome by the thick swell of ever-expanding silence. Colby feels sick. It isn't supposed to go down this way, is it? He gets out of the car, slams the door, and walks away.

And David lets him.

That's the part he remembers most clearly during the following weeks. David let him walk away.

~@~@~@~

Before

It has been exactly one month since David left for D.C.

Colby is pressed up against a girl in the back hallway of a crowded bar. Her blonde hair is scrunched up behind her head in the corner where the pay phone and the dark wood paneling meet. It's kind of a cheap thing, making out with her back here on the first date, but he's got a good idea that she wants to go home with him, even though that will probably guarantee the second date never comes. He doesn't care. He's not sure if her name is Karen or Carol, and he's not going to ask for clarification. He hasn't had sex in a month and he's dying to just fucking unload. He's dying to fake being all right for one night.

His cell rings and he pulls it from his jeans, flicks it open. David. He holds up one finger and turns away. She nods, pushes past a gaggle of college girls and into the bathroom, and Colby heads for the back door.

Colby presses the phone to his ear, sealing out the bar's grating rumble. "Granger."

"Um, hey." David sounds like he didn't expect Colby to pick up.

"David."

"Yeah."

"What do you want?" Colby slips out the back and into the orange-lit night.

"I want to talk to you, Colby."

"All right."

"How have you been?"

"I thought you were the one who wanted to talk," says Colby. He doesn't really want to tell David how he's been. Not sleeping. Not eating. Pretending it's cool that David is suddenly just gone.

"Right," says David. "Right. I, uh, wanted to ask you something."

"You've got my attention for the next," Colby checks his watch, "three minutes, I guess. So go ahead."

"You still want this to be permanent?"

Suddenly the only thing Colby can hear is the slow rap of thunder beating deep inside his chest. "What are you talking about, David?"

"You and me. Back in the car, before I left. You said you wanted this to be permanent."

"I remember," Colby says, the words expressionless. "And then you moved to D.C."

"Yeah, I'm still here, and you're there, but I've been thinking about it... You know, the long distance thing."

"Don't worry about it. My plan's got it covered as long as you're in the continental U.S."

David chuckles (and God, how Colby's missed that sound). "Always with the lamest jokes."

"Yeah, well."

"You know what I mean. The physical distance between us. You and me."

"It's a lot of distance. A whole country's worth."

"I know neither one of us gets much time off, but it's not really so bad if you sleep on the flight. We could meet half way sometimes... There are options."

"You sound like you want us to be serious," Colby says.

"Maybe that too."

"How's this going to work, exactly?"

"I don't know yet. How did we make it work before?"

"I thought the whole point was that it didn't work before," says Colby. "That's why I haven't heard from you for a month."

"You haven't called either."

"You made it pretty clear you were done with me," says Colby, and there's an ache behind his ribs that makes him flinch.

"All right. I knew you were gonna do this."

"Do what? David, I'm not the one who ended it."

"Can you just cut out all the posturing and fucking tell me if you want to be with me or not?"

"If you've gotta ask--"

"Colby!"

"Yeah." Colby closes his eyes as the aching feeling crests. "Yeah, David, I want to be with you. You know that."

"Then we'll work it out." Colby can tell that David's smiling now.

"All right." Colby swallows. His throat is so dry. He wants to trust David, to believe that he's telling the truth. He always trusted David before.

Before.

Before David let him walk away from that car.

"Where are you right now?" David asks.

"Uh, on a date."

"A date?"

"Yeah. With a... girl. Liz set it up." This is absurd, Colby thinks. "I think I was going to get laid tonight, too."

"Sorry she'll be disappointed."

"I'm not," says Colby. "So, uh, how's the job?"

"I'd tell you, but my three minutes are up."

"All right, man. I see how it is." Colby's smiling now, too.

"Colby, I'll call you in the morning, all right?"

"Yeah. I'd like that."

After he hangs up, he stares at the bar door for a moment before going back inside. She's waiting for him by the pay phone.

"I'm really sorry," he says. "This thing just came up..."


After

After a little more than a year of back and forth travel that comes all too infrequently, Colby transfers to D.C.

Living together, in a place where David's bedroom is his bedroom, and David's bed is his bed, takes three months to really sink in. And even when it does, Colby still has moments of disbelief. Long, lazy mornings wasted away in bed together are almost nonexistent, but they always seem to come just when Colby starts to think that their jobs are about to swallow them whole. This morning David is quiet, thoughtful, pressed up close while lost inside his own head.

"S'matter?" Colby says, burrowing his face into the curve of David's throat.

David stretches out and runs his fingertips up Colby's arm. "Heard you had a pretty close call out there yesterday."

Colby shrugs. "Wasn't too bad."

"The way I heard it, you had a gun pressed to your forehead for half an hour and then you almost got yourself shot by the other guy while you disarmed the first one. What were you thinking?"

"See, it's all in how you spin it. I like to say that I 'expertly avoided' that bullet while taking down the bad guy."

"That was a big risk, Colby. You should've waited for SWAT."

"I just got sick of listening to that guy talk, man."

"You're getting reckless. I don't like it. It's bad enough that back in L.A., you used to scare the hell out of me sometimes."

"And you didn't scare me? You got shot, David, right in front of me. And what about the fucking elevator?"

"Oh, it's a contest now?" And some of the tension is gone from David's voice. "I think I win with 'triple agent tortured to near-death on a Chinese freighter'."

Colby presses his lips to David's chest. "And you held that against me for how long?"

David shifts his hips, turns to Colby and rubs his cock against Colby's thigh. "I've been holding something else against you for five years now. And I'd like to keep that going for a hell of a lot longer."

"Are you getting sentimental on me, Sinclair?"

"I just don't want to bury you, that's all."

"The feeling's mutual," Colby says.

He lets the silence sit between them for a while, a restful and meditative quiet, and it covers the bed like a blanket.

"I guess this is why neither one of us ever got serious with anyone before," says David.

Colby reaches down to squeeze David's ass, tugs him closer. "Because we didn't want to hear the bitching?"

David snorts. "Would I be with you if I was averse to bitching?"

"Good point."

"I just mean... It's a lot of stress."

Colby rolls on top of him. "I got a job offer."

"When?"

"Yesterday. Right before all that shit went down. Congressman. He's looking for someone to head up security."

David nods slowly. "And he wants you?"

"Well, he says he does."

"You gonna take it?"

Colby shakes his head. "Nah. Not really my thing, but it got me thinking. Maybe there's something better, you know?"

"Yeah. I know." David smiles, tracing a path down Colby's back with his fingertips, running his hands over the curve of Colby's ass.

Colby lowers his head, brushes his lips over David's skin. "Love you," he says, and the words are still foreign to him, but he likes the way they feel on his tongue, the way they sound when they vibrate against David's skin.

"Mmm, I love you too." David's hands are on his shoulders now, pushing him down. "Less talk."

Colby grins and slides down the bed. David's right. He's got better things to do with his mouth this morning.

~@~@~@~