Work Text:
Peer Review
by Irena Adler
Charlie had enjoyed watching Colby plant Penfield's face into the table, followed by Penfield's increasingly panicked babble. But when Colby started talking Gitmo, he knew he had to stop it.
"Okay, Colby, that's enough."
Colby looked up and Charlie shivered at the dark look on his face.
"Are you sure?" Colby snapped. "Look what he had." He held out a piece of paper.
Frowning, Charlie took it. Then he recognized it and his stomach dropped to his toes.
"This was just for fun!" Charlie said to Penfield. "Larry and I just messing around."
"Get this jackass off me!" Penfield growled.
"Oh, right. Let him up."
Grumbling under his breath, Colby roughly jerked Penfield up from the table. Penfield pulled away from him and straightened his suit.
"Don't think much of your hospitality," Penfield said stiffly.
"What were you doing here?" Charlie asked.
"I need a reason to visit a friend when I'm in town?"
Charlie snorted. "Marshall, we've never been friends."
"I'm hurt, Eppsie," Penfield said, his usual sneer restored. "After all these years."
"All these years of attacking me," Charlie said, leftover adrenaline making him more direct than usual.
"It's called `Peer Review' and if you can't take it, you shouldn't publish."
"No, it's always been personal." Charlie folded his arms across his chest. "What did I ever do to you?"
Marshall's eyebrows shot up. "To me? Nothing, other than being superior and smug. You've just needed to be taken down a peg -- several pegs -- since I've met you. Just because I'm the only one with the nerve to question the Great Charles Eppes, doesn't mean it's personal."
"So what's with calling Cognitive Emergence `fluffy math'?"
"Well, it obviously is," Marshall smirked, pointing at the paper in Charlie's hands. "And it's time the math world learned that."
end