Numb3rs Fic: Nine Red Apples
Posted to numb3rs_slash
Title: Nine Red Apples (Sequel to Four Red Bumps)
Series/Universe: Three Red Balls
Pairing/Characters: Charlie/Colby
Rating: R
Spoilers: Vector, Identity Crisis, Judgment Call, Robin Hood, Primacy
Summary: Accidents happen and apparently so does accidental sex
Notes/Warnings: Read the disclaimer on my LJ
Colby looked out of the peephole of his apartment door and saw only a few errant brown curls. Damn. He really needed a second lower peephole.
He opened the door with a tired sigh.
"Charlie, it's been a long day. Did you have to follow me home to keep the argument going?"
"Frankly, yes." Charlie pushed his way into the apartment.
"Just come on in," Colby snarked, making a grand gesture of welcome which was completely missed by Charlie, already over by the three boxes and preparing his rant in full teacher mode.
"I can't believe you want to lock your balls up! They clearly have unique properties and should be studied, not hidden away!"
"Can I offer you a glass of water to drink during your rant?" Colby offered, playing the proper host bit to the hilt.
"Actually, that'd be nice. Thanks." A little disarmed, Charlie sat down on the couch while Colby went into the kitchen. He looked around and realized Colby's bachelor pad had actual décor - color-coordinated throw pillows and all. Martha Stewart would have been proud. Colby walked out, sipping a glass of water as he handed another one to Charlie. "So," Charlie said, taking the glass, "I had no idea you were gay."
Colby spewed the water in his mouth and it fell in a fine mist over Charlie's head. When the water touched the curls they came to life like Medusa's snakes and curled up even more, thus frustrating all efforts to statistically track Charlie's hairstyle changes over time.
"Who said I was gay?"
Charlie waved his hand, gesturing to the room. "Dude, you have throw pillows."
"Point taken," Colby grumbled, putting his glass on the coffee table. "Just don't say anything to anyone at work, okay?"
"They've never been to your apartment before?"
"Yeah, they have."
"Then they know," Charlie assured him, taking a drink then putting his glass on the table next to Colby's.
"Not necessarily," Colby said. "The throw pillows were on sale at Macy's last week. Forty percent off, can you believe it? Only David's seen them and I think he was sufficiently distracted last time he was here."
"Uh yeah," Charlie said, adding it up because he's a mathematician, damn it! "Really don't want to know. Moving on! Are you going to allow the balls to be studied or not?"
Colby plopped down on the couch at the opposite end from Charlie. Charlie's end of the couch abruptly lifted up like a seesaw from the weight imbalance and Colby shifted to the center with an apologetic shrug.
"It goes against all my instincts to ever open those boxes again. They're nothing but trouble. Megan's pissed, Don has a concussion - and how fair is it that I get the blame when you were the one with the baseball bat?"
"Oh, don't tell me you didn't want to smack Don after the first round," Charlie groused.
Colby considered that for a second. Okay, maybe a minute. Give the boy a little time. "Maybe after the second round, sure, but still. They're dangerous."
Charlie got up and crossed over to the three red boxes, picking up the center one and examining the markings on the box.
"I'm a scientist. We're driven by the need to know, to understand. You can't just dangle a find like this in front of me and then take it away!"
Colby watched, growing tense as Charlie fiddled with the latch aimlessly as he talked.
"Uh, Charlie..."
"The balls might even be harmful! What if there are long term side effects to even having them in your house?"
"Like what?"
"Like hair loss."
"Hair loss?"
"Maybe cancer."
"Cancer?"
"Perhaps even erectile dysfunction."
"What!"
Colby's yell startled Charlie whose fingers slipped on the box starting a chain reaction in that cool slo-mo that looks so great in movies. Colby bolted up as the box fell open, but in his haste knocked over his coffee table causing both glasses of water to spill and the bowl of apples artfully displayed on a table runner (also forty percent off at Macy's - it was a good sale!) to go flying. Charlie tried to grab for the red ball as it fell, as did Colby who was already falling himself, but suddenly there were nine other red projectiles doing the Isaac Newton on their way to the floor.
Charlie got a hand barely under the ball, but then Colby's massive hands clapped around his, taking ball and Charlie hand down to the floor with him like a touchdown football only with 5'7" (yeah right) worth of math professor along for the ride.
A split second later, they found themselves on the floor facing each other, both with their hands on the ball.
Colby ripped his hands from the ball as if it was red hot and not just red.
"Any chance that's the truth ball?" he pleaded.
A wicked grin erupted on Charlie's face. "Not a chance." Tossing the ball aside, he lunged at Colby, planting a big wet kiss on his lips.
Colby hesitated for the nanosecond it took for 'Don is going to kill me' to pass through his skull then returned the kiss avidly, rolling onto his back and taking Charlie with him so Charlie ended up on top.
"Ugh!" Colby made a sour face, causing Charlie to shift to kissing Colby's neck instead. He had a lot of neck to cover so it was best to get started with it.
"What?" he managed to ask, 8 percent through with the left side.
"I rolled in the water. I'm all wet," Colby grumbled.
"Wet Colby..." Charlie murmured dreamily, abandoning his task at only 11 percent completion. "Now that got my attention."
"Mine too, but not in a good way," Colby complained, suddenly discovering his hands had ended up on Charlie's ass of their own accord. They had minds of their own. They were certainly big enough to have brains, after all.
"Then let's get you out of these wet clothes," Charlie growled, ripping open Colby's shirt. "Ow!"
"What?" Colby tried to sit up, but Charlie was surprisingly heavy and it was harder than he'd thought seeing as how his hands were apparently glued to Charlie's butt.
"One of your buttons popped off and hit me in the eye," Charlie whined, looking down at Colby with one eye closed and the other squinting in empathy for its partner.
"Shit! Do I need to call an ambulance?"
"No," Charlie explained. "I've got another eye."
"Good, because I'm pretty sure my phone's in the water too. I ruin more phones that way..."
Charlie wrestled with Colby's shirt and lost - unsurprising since Colby's clothing learned wrestling from him. "I can't get this off you!"
Colby rolled them over so he was on top of Charlie and tore his shirt off. Okay, maybe not tore unless you count that thread that was kind of loose anyway, but I don't think Colby's ego could handle Charlie popping buttons and him not doing any damage.
Once the shirt was off, Charlie basked in the glory of Colby's chest for a good 3.7 seconds before he grimaced.
"That's not the reaction I was hoping for," Colby said, confuzzled.
"Oh, trust me, I'd be all over you like - well me on you a few seconds ago - if I didn't have an apple poking me in the back."
"Shit! Sorry about that!" Colby rolled them back over and patted down the back of Charlie's jacket - at least until the little brains in his hands took over and headed south to pat Charlie's ass. "Well, it's applesauce now."
"Huh?" Charlie looked up from where he was licking Colby's chest. He was so distracted by his task he'd neglected to set a baseline and had to estimate his progress at only 5 percent with a margin of error of, well, lots.
"Never mind," Colby said, already struggling to get the jacket off Charlie. "Why is it taking so long to get naked? Why aren't we having sex yet? And why am I back in the water?"
"You know what?" Charlie said, finally tearing off his own jacket and pulling off his shirt. "You're mind blowingly hot - more so when you're half naked and wet - but seriously! Shut the fuck up already! Less talk! More sex!"
"Yeah, but..."
Before Colby could get another word out Charlie grabbed one of the apples from the floor and stuffed it forcefully into Colby's mouth.
"There my little stuffed pig," he cooed. "I like you much better when you don't talk."
He busied himself with opening up both of their pants and let out a gasp once he got Colby's fly open. "No underwear?" he asked slyly.
"Mm mmm mm mm mmmm mmm," Colby explained around the apple in his mouth.
"You don't say," Charlie replied, nodding sagely for .8 seconds before throwing himself back into the task of NC17 rated full frontal male nudity. (Okay, maybe just R rated. They are still partially clothed after all.)
Once they were chest to chest and cock to cock, Colby took over - or rather it was a team effort with all brains on board. His hands moved Charlie against him, getting his groove back like Stella on steroids. (Colby wishes to assert here that he does not use steroids and that he is 100 percent all natural beefcake. Really.)
Craving more, Colby slipped his hands inside the back of Charlie's loosened pants and cupped his bare ass in his large hands. (Those hands went to a very happy place in their respective brains.)
Charlie's fingers dug into Colby's massive biceps as their bodies rocked together, his snake curls sproinging happily as they bounced to the rhythm.
His hands happily full of professor, Colby was the first to lose control with a muffled scream, his tiniest brain going splodey between their taut bellies as the other brains - and Charlie's big one - followed suit.
Blissfully dazed, Charlie laid his head on Colby's chest as he tried to catch his breath.
"Dude," he said with a post-orgasmic lazy chuckle. "You so squealed like a pig just now. I thought this was Deliverance!"
He looked up at a loud sound near his head and found Colby taking a bite out of the apple as he removed it from his mouth.
"That was not a squeal!" He popped the apple into Charlie's mouth before he could protest. "Have a taste of your own medicine, Adam!"
Charlie rolled off and pulled the apple out of his mouth, staring at it then staring at Colby and their state of undress in a state of shock. Colby's gaze followed his and they both hurriedly tucked themselves back into their pants, the sound of zippers so loud in the room Colby was worried he'd get a call from his neighbors about the noise.
Both of their gazes slowly turned to the ball, which had lazily rolled into the kitchen along with a couple of the not yet applesauce apples.
"Shit."
"That was... We just..." Charlie babbled. "Shit."
"I think I summed that up much more succinctly, Mr. Genius," Colby snarked.
Charlie let out a long breath. "Wow. Well, that certainly wasn't what I had in mind when I came over here."
Colby did his best to look like he agreed with that statement. Hey, you have to give the guy credit for trying. Thankfully Charlie wasn't paying any attention to that or the fact he still hadn't thought to put his shirt on. In fact, Charlie had on his 'thinking very hard' face, which frightened Colby just a little since Charlie thinking had kind of started this whole thing.
"I've got it!"
"Got what?" Colby said, heading into his bedroom for a shirt that wasn't soaking wet and a towel to clean up his floor with. He emerged pulling on his slightly too tight 'Beef: It's what's for dinner' t-shirt, looking like a porn movie stuck in reverse.
Charlie opened his mouth to answer and had to wait until he recovered from that visual, which was totally understandable.
"Uh, yeah. I have a solution to our problem. We were under the influence of the sex ball and did something we might regret..."
"Might regret..." Colby echoed.
"So we can use the memory ball so that we can forget!"
"Can forget..." Colby furrowed his brow. "Huh?"
"Did I miss you already picking up the memory ball?" Charlie asked with a nervous titter.
Colby flopped down on the couch - the middle this time thankfully. "How is that going to help? Won't we just end up like Don? I for one am not up for a concussion. I've seen how you wield a baseball bat and I have to admit you scare the pants off me." Colby looked down at his still damp pants and back up. "Okay, maybe not the best choice of words."
"Here's how it will work," Charlie said, launching into teacher mode. "We write ourselves notes that tell us just what we need to know - that something happened with the balls and we chose to forget it. Then we use the memory ball and read the notes. We'll have the good sense not to question ourselves and we'll go on with life as if nothing happened. Got that?"
Colby stared at him vapidly for a few seconds then shook himself. He picked up Charlie's shirt off the floor and handed it to him.
"Maybe I'd have heard what you said if you weren't walking around shirtless."
(Twenty minutes of letter writing and head injuries later)
"Huh."
"Huh."
Charlie looked up from his letter just as Colby looked up from reading his.
"So I guess something happened."
"Yeah."
"And I guess we don't remember it."
"Yeah, and apparently that's a good thing."
"My letter says 'Don't ask why there's apple on your jacket' and ends with 'So get the hell out now and go home before you do anything stupid'," Charlie read.
"Mine swears my pants are wet because of spilled water and ends with 'Get Charlie out of your apartment ASAP and lock up the damn boxes'," Colby responded.
"Huh," they said simultaneously.
"So, I guess I should go." Charlie gestured nervously to the door.
"Yeah and I guess I should be kicking you out," Colby tossed out, trying to keep the mood light.
Charlie headed to the door and opened it.
"I'll, uh, see you I guess."
"Yeah, later. I'd say thanks for coming by, if I knew what you came over for." They shared an awkward look. "This is the part where you go?" Colby nudged.
"Yeah! Sorry. I uh, guess my memory really is gone," Charlie joked lamely as he rubbed the bump on the back of his head. Colby seriously needed to be recruited for the FBI baseball team. "As Larry says 'My memory is a memory'."
"Still not gone," Colby said, leaning against the open door getting grumpier by the minute since cool breezes and wet pants do not a happy Colby make. This he knows from experience. Far too much experience.
"Right! So, see you!"
Colby closed the door after Charlie and bolted it. And put the chain up. And dragged a chair over for good measure.
Charlie wandered around for a while before he found his car (because calling Colby on his cell and asking 'Dude where's my car?' was only funny in theory). He got behind the wheel wondering what he'd had planned for the rest of the day.
Glancing in the vanity mirror of his car's sun visor to check his hair, he found it oddly askew and strangely curlier by a statistically significant amount. Looking again, he discovered on closer inspection that his shirt was inside out.
His eyes widened as his genius mind rapidly put together the very short list of one reason why his shirt would be inside out.
"Holy..."
Inside the apartment Colby headed into his bathroom, rubbing his sore head. (If anyone's mind went into the gutter here, you're on your own.) He noted that Charlie plus bat equaled pain and that was an equation he could understand.
He tossed back a few aspirin without water, in manly fashion, then had to put his head under the faucet for a drink when he choked on them.
He glanced at himself in the mirror and blinked in confusion as he noticed some discoloration on his biceps. He moved closer to the mirror and made out what looked like the ghost of a handprint - albeit a reasonably small one - on each arm.
"Holy..."
He went back to the living room and looked for any evidence to support his hypothesis. Hey, Colby went to college! He can play boy scientist if he wants to!
The living room looked perfectly normal - the boxes were lined up on the table, each throw pillow was set square into each corner of the couch and love seat and the new runner looked just perfect draped over his coffee table.
And then he saw it: proof.
His artfully arranged pyramid of apples was one apple short. He wouldn't just ruin his lovely décor like that. He had to have been under the influence.
"Well, that explains one of the flavors in my mouth," Colby said mournfully. He turned and went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth in hopes of erasing the apple and Charlie flavors from his mouth.
Yes, Charlie can has a flavor...
=
Title: Nine Red Apples (Sequel to Four Red Bumps)
Series/Universe: Three Red Balls
Pairing/Characters: Charlie/Colby
Rating: R
Spoilers: Vector, Identity Crisis, Judgment Call, Robin Hood, Primacy
Summary: Accidents happen and apparently so does accidental sex
Notes/Warnings: Read the disclaimer on my LJ
Colby looked out of the peephole of his apartment door and saw only a few errant brown curls. Damn. He really needed a second lower peephole.
He opened the door with a tired sigh.
"Charlie, it's been a long day. Did you have to follow me home to keep the argument going?"
"Frankly, yes." Charlie pushed his way into the apartment.
"Just come on in," Colby snarked, making a grand gesture of welcome which was completely missed by Charlie, already over by the three boxes and preparing his rant in full teacher mode.
"I can't believe you want to lock your balls up! They clearly have unique properties and should be studied, not hidden away!"
"Can I offer you a glass of water to drink during your rant?" Colby offered, playing the proper host bit to the hilt.
"Actually, that'd be nice. Thanks." A little disarmed, Charlie sat down on the couch while Colby went into the kitchen. He looked around and realized Colby's bachelor pad had actual décor - color-coordinated throw pillows and all. Martha Stewart would have been proud. Colby walked out, sipping a glass of water as he handed another one to Charlie. "So," Charlie said, taking the glass, "I had no idea you were gay."
Colby spewed the water in his mouth and it fell in a fine mist over Charlie's head. When the water touched the curls they came to life like Medusa's snakes and curled up even more, thus frustrating all efforts to statistically track Charlie's hairstyle changes over time.
"Who said I was gay?"
Charlie waved his hand, gesturing to the room. "Dude, you have throw pillows."
"Point taken," Colby grumbled, putting his glass on the coffee table. "Just don't say anything to anyone at work, okay?"
"They've never been to your apartment before?"
"Yeah, they have."
"Then they know," Charlie assured him, taking a drink then putting his glass on the table next to Colby's.
"Not necessarily," Colby said. "The throw pillows were on sale at Macy's last week. Forty percent off, can you believe it? Only David's seen them and I think he was sufficiently distracted last time he was here."
"Uh yeah," Charlie said, adding it up because he's a mathematician, damn it! "Really don't want to know. Moving on! Are you going to allow the balls to be studied or not?"
Colby plopped down on the couch at the opposite end from Charlie. Charlie's end of the couch abruptly lifted up like a seesaw from the weight imbalance and Colby shifted to the center with an apologetic shrug.
"It goes against all my instincts to ever open those boxes again. They're nothing but trouble. Megan's pissed, Don has a concussion - and how fair is it that I get the blame when you were the one with the baseball bat?"
"Oh, don't tell me you didn't want to smack Don after the first round," Charlie groused.
Colby considered that for a second. Okay, maybe a minute. Give the boy a little time. "Maybe after the second round, sure, but still. They're dangerous."
Charlie got up and crossed over to the three red boxes, picking up the center one and examining the markings on the box.
"I'm a scientist. We're driven by the need to know, to understand. You can't just dangle a find like this in front of me and then take it away!"
Colby watched, growing tense as Charlie fiddled with the latch aimlessly as he talked.
"Uh, Charlie..."
"The balls might even be harmful! What if there are long term side effects to even having them in your house?"
"Like what?"
"Like hair loss."
"Hair loss?"
"Maybe cancer."
"Cancer?"
"Perhaps even erectile dysfunction."
"What!"
Colby's yell startled Charlie whose fingers slipped on the box starting a chain reaction in that cool slo-mo that looks so great in movies. Colby bolted up as the box fell open, but in his haste knocked over his coffee table causing both glasses of water to spill and the bowl of apples artfully displayed on a table runner (also forty percent off at Macy's - it was a good sale!) to go flying. Charlie tried to grab for the red ball as it fell, as did Colby who was already falling himself, but suddenly there were nine other red projectiles doing the Isaac Newton on their way to the floor.
Charlie got a hand barely under the ball, but then Colby's massive hands clapped around his, taking ball and Charlie hand down to the floor with him like a touchdown football only with 5'7" (yeah right) worth of math professor along for the ride.
A split second later, they found themselves on the floor facing each other, both with their hands on the ball.
Colby ripped his hands from the ball as if it was red hot and not just red.
"Any chance that's the truth ball?" he pleaded.
A wicked grin erupted on Charlie's face. "Not a chance." Tossing the ball aside, he lunged at Colby, planting a big wet kiss on his lips.
Colby hesitated for the nanosecond it took for 'Don is going to kill me' to pass through his skull then returned the kiss avidly, rolling onto his back and taking Charlie with him so Charlie ended up on top.
"Ugh!" Colby made a sour face, causing Charlie to shift to kissing Colby's neck instead. He had a lot of neck to cover so it was best to get started with it.
"What?" he managed to ask, 8 percent through with the left side.
"I rolled in the water. I'm all wet," Colby grumbled.
"Wet Colby..." Charlie murmured dreamily, abandoning his task at only 11 percent completion. "Now that got my attention."
"Mine too, but not in a good way," Colby complained, suddenly discovering his hands had ended up on Charlie's ass of their own accord. They had minds of their own. They were certainly big enough to have brains, after all.
"Then let's get you out of these wet clothes," Charlie growled, ripping open Colby's shirt. "Ow!"
"What?" Colby tried to sit up, but Charlie was surprisingly heavy and it was harder than he'd thought seeing as how his hands were apparently glued to Charlie's butt.
"One of your buttons popped off and hit me in the eye," Charlie whined, looking down at Colby with one eye closed and the other squinting in empathy for its partner.
"Shit! Do I need to call an ambulance?"
"No," Charlie explained. "I've got another eye."
"Good, because I'm pretty sure my phone's in the water too. I ruin more phones that way..."
Charlie wrestled with Colby's shirt and lost - unsurprising since Colby's clothing learned wrestling from him. "I can't get this off you!"
Colby rolled them over so he was on top of Charlie and tore his shirt off. Okay, maybe not tore unless you count that thread that was kind of loose anyway, but I don't think Colby's ego could handle Charlie popping buttons and him not doing any damage.
Once the shirt was off, Charlie basked in the glory of Colby's chest for a good 3.7 seconds before he grimaced.
"That's not the reaction I was hoping for," Colby said, confuzzled.
"Oh, trust me, I'd be all over you like - well me on you a few seconds ago - if I didn't have an apple poking me in the back."
"Shit! Sorry about that!" Colby rolled them back over and patted down the back of Charlie's jacket - at least until the little brains in his hands took over and headed south to pat Charlie's ass. "Well, it's applesauce now."
"Huh?" Charlie looked up from where he was licking Colby's chest. He was so distracted by his task he'd neglected to set a baseline and had to estimate his progress at only 5 percent with a margin of error of, well, lots.
"Never mind," Colby said, already struggling to get the jacket off Charlie. "Why is it taking so long to get naked? Why aren't we having sex yet? And why am I back in the water?"
"You know what?" Charlie said, finally tearing off his own jacket and pulling off his shirt. "You're mind blowingly hot - more so when you're half naked and wet - but seriously! Shut the fuck up already! Less talk! More sex!"
"Yeah, but..."
Before Colby could get another word out Charlie grabbed one of the apples from the floor and stuffed it forcefully into Colby's mouth.
"There my little stuffed pig," he cooed. "I like you much better when you don't talk."
He busied himself with opening up both of their pants and let out a gasp once he got Colby's fly open. "No underwear?" he asked slyly.
"Mm mmm mm mm mmmm mmm," Colby explained around the apple in his mouth.
"You don't say," Charlie replied, nodding sagely for .8 seconds before throwing himself back into the task of NC17 rated full frontal male nudity. (Okay, maybe just R rated. They are still partially clothed after all.)
Once they were chest to chest and cock to cock, Colby took over - or rather it was a team effort with all brains on board. His hands moved Charlie against him, getting his groove back like Stella on steroids. (Colby wishes to assert here that he does not use steroids and that he is 100 percent all natural beefcake. Really.)
Craving more, Colby slipped his hands inside the back of Charlie's loosened pants and cupped his bare ass in his large hands. (Those hands went to a very happy place in their respective brains.)
Charlie's fingers dug into Colby's massive biceps as their bodies rocked together, his snake curls sproinging happily as they bounced to the rhythm.
His hands happily full of professor, Colby was the first to lose control with a muffled scream, his tiniest brain going splodey between their taut bellies as the other brains - and Charlie's big one - followed suit.
Blissfully dazed, Charlie laid his head on Colby's chest as he tried to catch his breath.
"Dude," he said with a post-orgasmic lazy chuckle. "You so squealed like a pig just now. I thought this was Deliverance!"
He looked up at a loud sound near his head and found Colby taking a bite out of the apple as he removed it from his mouth.
"That was not a squeal!" He popped the apple into Charlie's mouth before he could protest. "Have a taste of your own medicine, Adam!"
Charlie rolled off and pulled the apple out of his mouth, staring at it then staring at Colby and their state of undress in a state of shock. Colby's gaze followed his and they both hurriedly tucked themselves back into their pants, the sound of zippers so loud in the room Colby was worried he'd get a call from his neighbors about the noise.
Both of their gazes slowly turned to the ball, which had lazily rolled into the kitchen along with a couple of the not yet applesauce apples.
"Shit."
"That was... We just..." Charlie babbled. "Shit."
"I think I summed that up much more succinctly, Mr. Genius," Colby snarked.
Charlie let out a long breath. "Wow. Well, that certainly wasn't what I had in mind when I came over here."
Colby did his best to look like he agreed with that statement. Hey, you have to give the guy credit for trying. Thankfully Charlie wasn't paying any attention to that or the fact he still hadn't thought to put his shirt on. In fact, Charlie had on his 'thinking very hard' face, which frightened Colby just a little since Charlie thinking had kind of started this whole thing.
"I've got it!"
"Got what?" Colby said, heading into his bedroom for a shirt that wasn't soaking wet and a towel to clean up his floor with. He emerged pulling on his slightly too tight 'Beef: It's what's for dinner' t-shirt, looking like a porn movie stuck in reverse.
Charlie opened his mouth to answer and had to wait until he recovered from that visual, which was totally understandable.
"Uh, yeah. I have a solution to our problem. We were under the influence of the sex ball and did something we might regret..."
"Might regret..." Colby echoed.
"So we can use the memory ball so that we can forget!"
"Can forget..." Colby furrowed his brow. "Huh?"
"Did I miss you already picking up the memory ball?" Charlie asked with a nervous titter.
Colby flopped down on the couch - the middle this time thankfully. "How is that going to help? Won't we just end up like Don? I for one am not up for a concussion. I've seen how you wield a baseball bat and I have to admit you scare the pants off me." Colby looked down at his still damp pants and back up. "Okay, maybe not the best choice of words."
"Here's how it will work," Charlie said, launching into teacher mode. "We write ourselves notes that tell us just what we need to know - that something happened with the balls and we chose to forget it. Then we use the memory ball and read the notes. We'll have the good sense not to question ourselves and we'll go on with life as if nothing happened. Got that?"
Colby stared at him vapidly for a few seconds then shook himself. He picked up Charlie's shirt off the floor and handed it to him.
"Maybe I'd have heard what you said if you weren't walking around shirtless."
(Twenty minutes of letter writing and head injuries later)
"Huh."
"Huh."
Charlie looked up from his letter just as Colby looked up from reading his.
"So I guess something happened."
"Yeah."
"And I guess we don't remember it."
"Yeah, and apparently that's a good thing."
"My letter says 'Don't ask why there's apple on your jacket' and ends with 'So get the hell out now and go home before you do anything stupid'," Charlie read.
"Mine swears my pants are wet because of spilled water and ends with 'Get Charlie out of your apartment ASAP and lock up the damn boxes'," Colby responded.
"Huh," they said simultaneously.
"So, I guess I should go." Charlie gestured nervously to the door.
"Yeah and I guess I should be kicking you out," Colby tossed out, trying to keep the mood light.
Charlie headed to the door and opened it.
"I'll, uh, see you I guess."
"Yeah, later. I'd say thanks for coming by, if I knew what you came over for." They shared an awkward look. "This is the part where you go?" Colby nudged.
"Yeah! Sorry. I uh, guess my memory really is gone," Charlie joked lamely as he rubbed the bump on the back of his head. Colby seriously needed to be recruited for the FBI baseball team. "As Larry says 'My memory is a memory'."
"Still not gone," Colby said, leaning against the open door getting grumpier by the minute since cool breezes and wet pants do not a happy Colby make. This he knows from experience. Far too much experience.
"Right! So, see you!"
Colby closed the door after Charlie and bolted it. And put the chain up. And dragged a chair over for good measure.
Charlie wandered around for a while before he found his car (because calling Colby on his cell and asking 'Dude where's my car?' was only funny in theory). He got behind the wheel wondering what he'd had planned for the rest of the day.
Glancing in the vanity mirror of his car's sun visor to check his hair, he found it oddly askew and strangely curlier by a statistically significant amount. Looking again, he discovered on closer inspection that his shirt was inside out.
His eyes widened as his genius mind rapidly put together the very short list of one reason why his shirt would be inside out.
"Holy..."
Inside the apartment Colby headed into his bathroom, rubbing his sore head. (If anyone's mind went into the gutter here, you're on your own.) He noted that Charlie plus bat equaled pain and that was an equation he could understand.
He tossed back a few aspirin without water, in manly fashion, then had to put his head under the faucet for a drink when he choked on them.
He glanced at himself in the mirror and blinked in confusion as he noticed some discoloration on his biceps. He moved closer to the mirror and made out what looked like the ghost of a handprint - albeit a reasonably small one - on each arm.
"Holy..."
He went back to the living room and looked for any evidence to support his hypothesis. Hey, Colby went to college! He can play boy scientist if he wants to!
The living room looked perfectly normal - the boxes were lined up on the table, each throw pillow was set square into each corner of the couch and love seat and the new runner looked just perfect draped over his coffee table.
And then he saw it: proof.
His artfully arranged pyramid of apples was one apple short. He wouldn't just ruin his lovely décor like that. He had to have been under the influence.
"Well, that explains one of the flavors in my mouth," Colby said mournfully. He turned and went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth in hopes of erasing the apple and Charlie flavors from his mouth.
Yes, Charlie can has a flavor...
=