NEUR0vanity

Title: An Afternoon's Epilogue (Prelude to Our Storm)
Fandom: Numb3rs
Characters: Don Eppes, Billy Cooper
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300

“They’re going to get planes.”

They sit on gingham-upholstered wicker furniture – a loveseat and a chair – on the sun-faded porch with a small black-and-white TV playing scrambled frames of the White Sox striking out. In the gravel driveway, a rusty Buick contains a trunk full of guns. The summer sun beats relentlessly down on them – skin hot and sticky beneath shirts of denim and plaid-printed cotton – as Billy nurses a beer and Don sips his tart lemonade.

“Next year, we’re going to be on planes,” Billy says after his lips pop from pulling back from the bottle. “More efficient.” There’s a twinge of disappointment, nostalgia before it’s due, and his eyes are on the trusty Buick and not the Yankees taking the field through snow-and-sand reception.

The door to the farmhouse opens with a creak, and an old lady steps out. Beads and streams of condensation slip down the side of the pitcher she carefully carries.

“More lemonade?”

“No thank you, ma’am.” Don drains the last of his glass, face clenched from the sour and sweet, and he clears the sugar from his throat. “We ought to be on our way.”

“You boys going to see Bobby?”

Billy smiles that sideways grin of his. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Y’all be sure to say hello for me. Tell ‘im Momma says to be home by six if he’s wanting that pot roast he asked for. Ain’t no sense in me slaving over a hot stove in this heat if he ain’t going to be here to enjoy it.”

The corners of Don’s eyes crinkle as he smiles up at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

They rise to their feet, eyes aligned with the tops of rows of corn, and they’re stepping off the porch, walking across the gravel, on their way to arrest her son.

end.

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