Skewed, by Sammac (PG13)

[the-hobbet.livejournal.com]

Fandom: NUMB3RS
Characters: Don, Charlie
Length: 76,486 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Sammac on Fanfiction.net
Why this must be read:

My favorite mystery writers are ones that teach us about a job or subculture, like Dick Francis and Tony Hillerman, in the process of telling a story. Sammac's real life job is teaching blind people how to navigate with their other senses. She uses her knowledge of the cues provided by sound, touch, and smell, what blind people notice, and how they interpret those cues to enrich a story of changing relationships between the brothers. Her attention to detail in building a case story as well as the world of the blind is compelling. Just don't start reading too late at night. It kept me up until 4:30am. Ouch!

Test the Data

I shut the front door and stand just inside the darkened foyer, leaning back against the wood to listen. The house is silent, except for the sound of the bird's claws dancing on a perch in the middle distance and, farther out, the faint, high-speed chatter of my brother's computer. He's working out back. He's got the volume turned down low, but at night the sound carries far enough to just reach the living room, so I cross through the house to the back door and step out onto the back porch. I sit beside him in the dark. The lights are turned off and I leave them that way because I still don't feel right operating them for him. "Hey, Charlie."

Annoyance winces across his face and disappears. I've seen that expression a lot these last couple of years, and I'm usually responsible for it. I just can't get used to the change: before, it never mattered if I talked while he worked. He'd just ignore me if he was concentrating, keep staring at the equation scrawled out on his chalkboard; the trouble is, now he stares with his ears, and if I'm filling them with words I might as well be body-blocking his chalkboard. You still don't understand, do you, Don? New factors, new equation. One new factor changes everything.

Even after two years, he still refers to blindness as 'the new factor,' and it's not just a euphemism coined for my sake; he honestly treats it that way. Emotions, especially strong ones, are a variable Charlie isn't comfortable working with, and he'll go to great lengths to avoid them. I know he hasn't factored them into this new equation of his yet, because when he does it'll get even more complicated. For one thing, once he comes to terms with what I let happen to him, he won't want anything to do with me. But until then we're still brothers, and as far as he's concerned everything is status quo between us; blindness may be a new equation, but it's one he's figured out how to work.

Skewed