Double-Act
by Miriam Heddy

     Larry Fleinhardt looked out the window and decided that it was high time for a break. He rested his head on his hands, a part of his mind still working on the problem, but not a large part, as it was not a large problem. It was, like most problems, a small problem that seemed larger and more complicated the longer you looked at it. And he knew that, with sufficient distance from it, and a little nap, it would all come into focus and he'd figure it out. Or he wouldn't.

And if he didn't.... well, the fate of the world hardly rested on whether one fifty-one year old physicist got laid.

"You have a minute?"

He turned his head a fraction--though he didn't have to, really, as he knew not only who had spoken, but also what Charlie's expression would be now: purposefully casual, but with a set to his jaw that meant he was anything but. Because young men like Charlie didn't know how to relax. They didn't know how to tell the big problems from the small ones. Everything was, for Charles Eppes, a matter of UTMOST IMPORTANCE, except, of course, for the things that really mattered. Charlie had much to learn. But those were dangerous thoughts, weren't they?

"I've got at least that. The doctors tell me I'm in excellent health for a man my age."

He turned around, then, and saw the briefest flash of a grin pass over Charles' face. It made him look younger, which prompted other, even more dangerous thoughts. Larry looked back out the window, noticing that they were tending to the lawn across the way, for what he was sure was the second time this week. Either the grass there was unusually persistent, or, more likely, someone had screwed up a work order and was currently wasting valuable university resources. And then he remembered that he'd scattered some dandelion seeds around that patch a few weeks ago, just to introduce a bit of uncertainty into the life of old Margaret Applewhite, who knew everything there was to know about Shakespeare, and who sometimes spotted him from her window and waved back at him from across the commons but who seemed completely unable to find a reason to smile. People like her were a puzzle he couldn't crack. How could you be that persistently unhappy and still have anything to teach? What was the purpose in teaching if it wasn't to make young men like Charles Eppes smile?

He sighed, then realized that Charlie had taken up his sixty seconds, and then some, but hadn't yet gotten to the point of saying anything.

"Hmm?" he prompted, and Charlie cleared his throat, but no words were forthcoming.

"Charles, Charles, Charles," he said, turning around at last. He liked saying his name. It was a fine name, perfectly suiting him. Which was more than he could say for the jacket Charlie wore, which looked like he'd purchased it off of one of those racks outside the dry cleaners. They sometimes had good ties there, actually.

"Larry, do you ever wonder whether you've made the right choices?"

"That's a rather leading question, Charles. Any particular choices, or are we just questioning our place in the universe today?" There was something appealing about the Royal "We," wasn't there? It was so... inclusive.

Charlie picked up a pen from Larry's desk--one of his good pens that didn't leak and still had a working clicker. He tended to break pens. And pencil tips. And chalk. Strange that, at a well-funded university like this one, there was never a large piece of chalk around when you needed it. His whiteboard markers had a tendency to go dry at just the wrong moment, too, come to think of it.

"I think--I've just been thinking lately about wasted... resources--about whether I belong here. Whether I'm... needed, here. Appreciated."

"In this office right at this moment when you should be--let's see--having office hours?"

"Nobody's coming."

"Yes, that is the problem with closed doors." He glanced pointedly at his own, open door, but Charlie just smiled, indulgently.

"All right, all right. So you think you don't belong... here? At the university?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." Charlie would keep talking once he found his rhythm. And once he did, there went his afternoon.

"I've been spending a lot of time with the FBI lately."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed."

"Sarcasm. Thanks. Yes. I know. I owe you--I don't even want to think about that right now."

"No. You probably don't." Larry smiled, letting him know it was okay, because it was. The work Charlie was doing for Don was good work--important work--and, in the end, it was going to make him a better mathematician, and probably a better person, not that the two things were necessarily at all related.

"I just--" Charlie spun around in place, as if he were a broken compass searching for North, stopping just shy of 360 degrees. "Maybe this is a sign."

"Ah--yes. Of course. Have you checked your tea leaves recently?"

Charles frowned at him, his eyebrows pulling together in a single, unbroken line. Larry found that strangely attractive. He wondered if it was ethical, as Charlie's advisor, to tell Charlie outright that he was far too selfish to ever recommend that Charlie leave the university. Would it even matter? Did Charlie ever actually take his advice? Was he even looking for advice, or just a chance to talk through the problem with someone who, for entirely (well, not entirely, but still) prurient reasons, felt compelled to listen?

"Right, well, okay. Let's just focus on the practical then. What appeals to you about your work with the FBI? Is it just working with Don, or is it the work itself?"

"I--don't know."

"When you do, you'll probably have your answer."

"I like the real world problems--the stakes--they feel pretty high."

"Which is why I'm here, I suspect, alone in my gilded, ivory tower."

Charles didn't bite. "And it's been good, working with family"

"Yes. I imagine it has been."

"We never had much to talk about, before."

"But now, Don's finally starting to understand you--what you do and how you think."

"Yeah. I mean, it's mutual. I don't-- I think I used to imagine him sitting in an office somewhere, like...."

"Like you?"

"Yes. No. Like, um, more like Mulder, actually."

"No--no--" Larry caught his breath, realizing it'd been awhile since anything had struck him as quite that funny. "I get it. Don--he does seem to--to take himself very seriously."

"Yeah, you do. You get it." Charlie sat down onto the edge of the desk, looking relieved, his eyes wide and dark and... Larry forced himself to look somewhere else, instead getting up and coming around the desk, putting a hand on Charlie's shoulder, patting him there. It was awkward, a little, as it always was with Charlie, being what Charlie expected him to be. He wasn't much of an actor, really. But it was easy enough to play the kindly, old professor--absent-minded, which he admittedly was, and brilliant, which again, he was. Hardly took any acting at all, really. And old...? That was relative, of course. He was twice as old as Charlie, which was something he reminded himself of often, spending more time with Charlie's father, lately, playing chess with him, and remaining as selectively obtuse as possible as Alan dropped hints and offered up openings, digging around the issue of Larry's relationship with his youngest. Alan was a smart man, probably smarter than either of his boys realized, which was interesting, as it suggested that Charles was operating on the theory that his own intellect had sprung up from--where--some sort of selective mutation? When clearly, it was there, in his father's calculating, measured, nearly-pointed questions, one of which Larry knew he'd be called upon to answer, eventually. Or maybe not. Maybe Charlie would leave, move on, join the FBI, marry some nice young girl and have lots of little babies, hopefully soon--before Larry managed to make a fool of himself.

"Larry--hey--where'd you go?"

"Hmm? I'm--oh. Old minds do have a tendency to wander. I was just thinking about Koi."

Charlie feigned an expression of interest, which he supposed meant he had to say something profound about Koi. He wondered if there were any openings in the philosophy department. A career change at this point would be a challenge, and, with Charlie gone, there wouldn't be as much holding him here.

Koi... What was important about them? "Well, they spend their whole lives mere centimeters from the surface, with clouds reflected on the water just above their heads. If you look at them long enough, you can almost imagine they're flying rather than swimming. But when they open their mouths and break the surface tension of the water, they--they can only touch a world they really can't survive in. No, they're meant to spend their lives in a small pond, going in circles and dreaming about the sky." He took his hand from Charlie's shoulder, wondering just how long he'd held it there. Too long, apparently, because Charlie was looking at him very strangely.

"That's... that's beautiful."

Charlie was smiling at him, and Larry felt himself start to blush and looked down at his feet.

"Thanks. I probably read it on a fortune cookie somewhere."

"You--" but Charlie stopped, and when Larry looked up at him, again, he saw that Charlie's mouth was set in a hard line, the smile suddenly gone. "You--Larry--You're 40 years old, and you're in love with a little girl, say 10 years old. You're four times as old as that girl. You couldn't marry that girl, could you?"

Charlie's voice had gone oddly hard, demanding, like he was angry, though Larry had no real idea why. He frowned and shook his head, wondering if he should point out that he was more than forty years old. "And what, precisely, brought this on?"

But Charlie continued as if he hadn't just interrupted him. "So you wait 5 years. Now the little girl is 15, and you're 45. You're only three times as old as that girl. So you wait 15 years more. Now the little girl is 30, and you're 60. You're only twice as old as that little girl?"

Charlie stopped, then, and looked at Larry, and he shrugged, playing along, as always. "So she's catching up?"

Charlie nodded, looking far too serious for someone in the middle of an Abbott and Costello routine. "Here's the question. How long do you have to wait before you and that little girl are the same age?"

Again, Charlie stopped, looking at him, waiting. Larry looked away, out the window. "What kind of question is that? That's ridiculous."

"Why is it ridiculous?" Charlie pressed.

Larry pretended to think about it, finally turning back to him, suddenly irritable, because he knew this routine by heart. And Charles Eppes was looking... smug. The way he looked when he'd solved a particularly good puzzle--or when someone else failed to solve it. The man, Larry finally realized, was a complete bastard, who probably--no, definitely--should join the FBI. They'd probably find him a nice office somewhere in the basement, where Ms. Ramanujan would never find him.

"If I keep waiting for that girl," Larry continued, "she'll pass me up. She'll wind up older than I am. Then she'll have to wait for me." He said it without inflection, taking the humor out of it. Outside, someone walking by was arguing with someone else about... he listened, but couldn't figure out what they were talking about, though he suddenly wanted to go outside and find out.

And Charlie was still waiting, as if that wasn't the end--as if there was still a punchline coming up.

"Look, is there a point to this? Because I still have to--"

"Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"No. I'm really not."

"You are such a bad liar. That's why I played the straight man, by the way."

"I--"

"You really want me to leave? Go join the FBI?"

"I really don't--"

"Or should I stay? Amita's thinking about staying on--getting a second degree."

"Oh, I hadn't--"

"You know what I told her?"

"Nooo?"

"I told her I was happy about that. And I am."

"Oh," Larry said, for want of something else to say. "That's nice."

"Nice? Nice?" That pen Charlie was still holding was now pointing at Larry's chest, and Larry took a step back, only to have Charlie follow him, still pointing.

"It was nice. If someone you like and admire says they're going to spend more time with you, you're supposed to say that you're happy about it, and--and--if someone says they're thinking of leaving, you're supposed to tell them--you're supposed to say you'll miss them, tell them--tell them--be honest."

Charlie was breathing hard, practically panting, and Larry watched as he took a deep breath, at last setting the pen down on the desk. Larry took a sympathetic breath as well, finding it felt good to fill his lungs again.

"It's what you're supposed to say. Especially if you love someone."

"And you... you love Amita?"

Charlie sighed, and he was close enough that Larry could almost taste the mint mocha he'd been drinking. He licked his own lips, then stopped, wondering what the hell he was doing, as Charlie was staring at him.

"No--No--Larry, I don't love her, you--you imbecile."

"Oh. Does she know that? Because I think she probably should, if she's making decisions based on a faulty premise."

Charles nodded, as if he'd finally said something un-imbecilic. And Larry would've been pleased, except for the fact that he wasn't. He was annoyed, yes, definitely, and angry, because who the hell was this kid calling him an imbecile? And tired, because he'd gotten up at five this morning, and hungry, because he'd somehow missed lunch and he couldn't really remember if he'd had breakfast or not. And he was turned on, which was more than a bit disturbing, because he was still annoyed, and angry, and tired, and hungry, and now Charlie was licking his lips, and staring at him with strange, wide eyes, and leaning forward, and--

"Wha--"

"That, Larry Fleinhardt, was a kiss."

"Yes--yes. Yes. It was."

"Now tell me that it would be a mistake to go work for the FBI."

"I--it would be a mistake to go work for the FBI," he repeated, still thinking that yes, that certainly had been a kiss.

"Why."

"What?"

"Why would it be a mistake for me to go work for the FBI? For me to leave here and go there?"

"Oh. Um... Because..." And Larry had to stop and think about that, which was harder than it should have been, given that he'd been marshaling an entire argument against it since the moment Charlie first charged into his office smelling like gunpowder residue.

"Why should I stay?" Charlie prompted, again.

"Because you--"

"Because you--"

"Oh. Because I... because--"

And perhaps because he needed it, Charlie leaned in again and kissed him. And this time, he was actually prepared enough to respond, putting his hand on Charlie's neck and pulling him in and holding him in place while he aligned their bodies properly, measuring the fit of Charlie's body against his own and finding it was nearly perfect--as perfect as it had any right to be while they were both fully dressed and in full view of whomever happened to walk by his door or look in the window.

And the strange thing was, he didn't much care. It was that perfect--Charlie's mouth warm and wet under his, and Charlie still smelled like Starbucks and that stuff he put in his hair to tame the curls, and he ran his fingers through the hair curling over the nape of Charlie's neck, his other hand finding purchase on Charlie's ass, letting their bodies press together and rub, and if he was going to come in his pants at his age, he couldn't find it in himself to mind. It was just that perfect.

Then Charlie was pulling away, and Larry braced himself for the loss, because perfect things didn't last.

But Charlie was grinning, his lips wet and shiny and his cheeks flushed. Even his eyes... sparkled. They really did.

"You love me," Charlie said.

"I really do," he agreed.

"Good."

"Yes. Yes, it is," he agreed again, feeling very... agreeable.

"So let's not wait."

"Wait?"

"Until I'm too old for you," Charlie clarified, and Larry smiled.

"Right. So... Um."

"Sex."

"Sex. Oh, god yes. My place?" he asked, and Charlie nodded, ushering him out the open door. As they walked into the commons, Larry reached down and picked an errant dandelion, offering it to Charlie, who took it, looking amused.

"The feeling's mutual," Charlie said, smiling broadly.

And Larry smiled back, reminding himself that the really pressing problems really did solve themselves.

—FIN—

 

© 2006

 

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