Work Text:
A terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad dayâ€"
Colby opened the door of his apartment to find Charlie standing there in the rain, looking like a drowned poodle. Colby swallowed a laugh because the pitiful look on Charlie's face was more than could be explained by mere rain.
"What happened, angel?" Colby said, pulling him in out of the rain.
Charlie stood in the entryway and dripped while Colby went to grab a towel. "What didn't happen?" Charlie grumbled. "I've got this stupid cold that won't go away. What are those medical researchers messing around for anyway? They should have figured out a cure by now."
Colby returned with the towel and began squeezing the water out of Charlie's dripping curls. "Still feeling bad, hmm?"
"Then I was finally forgetting about the cold and making progress on the problem of theory reduction and bridge laws using nonmereologically related theory pairs, then this ... student walks into my office with some question that he should have learned the answer to in first year calculus and it all goes poof, out of my brain."
"I'm sure you'll get it back," Colby said soothingly. Whatever it is. He started stripping off Charlie's wet jacket.
Charlie began to shiver with the cold and Colby moved more quickly.
Charlie continued, "So I give up and go to grade some stupid Discrete Math tests and I spill coffee all over them."
"Yuck," Colby agreed. This was a problem that he knew too well. The hazard of needing coffee to make it through paperwork.
"It wasn't even hot coffee, it was an old cup that I'd forgotten about on my desk and it had turned all gloopy and queer."
"Eww." Colby's nose wrinkled. He gestured for Charlie to raise his arms. When Charlie did, Colby peeled Charlie's wet t-shirt up over his arms. Colby noticed with interest Charlie's goose pimpled skin and hard nipples. He tossed the wet shirt onto the kitchen table and began rubbing down Charlie's skin with the towel.
"I lay the tests I could save out to dry but there were five that were totally trashed. Now I have to decide if I'm gonna make them take the test again or give them the grade I think they most likely would have gotten without ever seeing their test."
"That hardly seems fair." Colby dried Charlie's back and tossed aside the now soaked towel. He went to get two more towels.
"I bet I can predict within one percentage point what they would have gotten."
Colby's lips quirked. "Pre-determination, Charlie?"
Charlie looked surprised then thoughtful. "You're right." He heaved a sigh. "I'll offer them a make-up test which means I'll have to offer it to the whole class or else people will complain that the make-up test was easier."
"Ah, students," Colby said, with a tone of disgust he usually reserved for saying "back-seat drivers" or "Broncos fans."
"Then I say forget it, I'm not going to get anything useful done today. I'll go home and take a hot bath."
Colby steered Charlie to sit down in a chair and took off his shoes. Even Charlie's socks were sopping wet. "Sounds like a good plan. What happened?"
"My car," Charlie grumbled. "Just stopped running right in the middle of the highway."
"Whoa," Colby said, alarmed. "Are you okay?"
"Traffic was already stop-and-go so I didn't get rear-ended. Just honked at a lot."
"What did you do?" Colby got off the dripping socks and stood Charlie back up.
"Well, you're supposed to stay in your car when you break down since a car is designed to withstand an impact but your body is not."
"Right." Colby unbuckled Charlie's belt. Why do I get the feeling you didn't do the smart thing?
"But I got this brilliant idea that I could, I don't know, tinker around in the engine like Dad does and make it go again."
"Charlie ..." Colby said with exasperation while he tried to wrestle off Charlie's wet blue jeans and wet underwear. Did you swim in these clothes?
"You sound just like my dad when I called him after standing in the pouring rain for twenty minutes, messing around in the engine compartment and getting honked at and my hands all scraped up." Charlie held up his hands and they indeed looked scraped and scratched.
"You called your dad?" Colby asked. "You could have called me."
"I know ..." Charlie mumbled. "But I felt like such an idiot."
Colby lifted his head from his task and frowned. "Charlie, you don't have to worry about looking like an idiot around me."
Charlie fidgeted, embarrassed. "But it's such a guy thing, to be able to fix cars."
"If I wanted that kind of guy," Colby said, getting Charlie's underwear and jeans over his hips with a jerk. "I would have gone to the auto shop, not CalSci."
"But you still haven't heard the stupidest part."
Colby raised his eyebrows. "What's that?"
Charlie flushed. "I was just out of gas."
Colby couldn't stop a laugh from escaping his mouth. Charlie's lips turned down in a pout.
"Oh Charlie," Colby said, lifting Charlie's foot and pulling the last of his wet clothes off. Standing up, he grabbed a dry towel and looped it around Charlie's waist, pulling him close. "You are wonderful, do you know that?"
"Because I'm an idiot?" Charlie said, still pouting.
"Yes," Colby said, moving the towel back and forth to dry Charlie's backside. "You are the world's most brilliant, wonderful idiot. And not only that, you're my brilliant wonderful idiot."
A smile appeared on Charlie's face, banishing the pout.
"Now," Colby said with a last swish of his towel. "I may not be able to offer you a hot bath, but how about a hot shower? And someone to soap your back?"
"Sounds lovely," Charlie said, wrapping his cold, naked body around Colby.
Colby brushed aside Charlie's still damp hair and kissed him on the forehead. "I'm glad you decided to head my way instead."
"Who else would I go to when I've had such a bad day?"
"I promise the rest of the day will be a vast improvement."
Charlie smiled. "It already is."