25-May-2006
Title: Normal, But Better
Author: TB
Category: yaoi, friendship, humour, Duo POV
Pairing: 3x4
Pairing: PG
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: The characters of Gundam Wing are not mine and are being used without permission. Please to not sue.
Notes: I don't know why, but I consider Duo to be Australian. He has an accent in all my fics. Just so you know.
Quatre ate a melon ball, surreptitiously licking his fingers. "By the way, you don't owe me a gift," he said.
Duo looked up from his panini. "I don't?"
"You already got me one." Quatre drank quickly from his iced tea, his eyes everywhere but directly on Duo. "Well, technically I got one for you to give to me. Don't worry, I already wrapped it and everything."
Duo stared at him, trying to unearth the logic in that. "What did I get you?" he asked finally.
"Oh, well, I guess you should know before I open it." Quatre laughed. It had a definitively nervous undertone. "It's a book."
"What kind of book?"
Quatre abruptly stuffed a spoonful of melon and sherbert into his mouth. "A thex book," he muttered around it, chewing vigourously.
"A sex book!" Duo exclaimed, then turned bright red when the woman at the next table looked at him. He grabbed Quatre's wrist and pulled him closer. "You bought a-- a sex book for me to give to you for your birthday?"
Quatre was turning pink, too. "There's a reason," he said defensively. "Trowa and I have been together for three years now, and everything's fine, it's great, really, but lately the sex is always... the same."
Duo tugged at his collar. He felt dangerously overheated. "I don't want to know this, Quatre."
"No, I want you to understand! It's just that I want to-- I don't know, spice things up a little, but I can't think of a good way to tell him, so then I thought of buying a book, except if I give it to him it's the same as telling him outright--"
"And what's wrong with that?"
Quatre glared at him. "Because that's the conversation everyone wants to have with their lover. ‘Good morning, Trowa. Do you want an omelette or cereal today? By the way, the missionary is getting really boring, could we try something else?'"
Duo drained his water glass in two big gulps. "So instead, I'm giving you a-- book. On your birthday. In front of everyone we know." Quatre nodded hopefully. "That's ridiculous, Quat! The last thing on Earth I'd ever give anyone is a-- a you-know-what-book!"
A sympathetic grin tugged on Quatre's mouth for a moment. "I know," he admitted. "You'd spontaneously combust if I even took it off the shelf in front of you. You're so Catholic sometimes. But just because I know you wouldn't do that doesn't mean Trowa does. Or any of the others. Come on, it's precisely the kind of thing they think you would do."
Probably true, Duo thought sourly. His reputation was all out of proportion with reality.
"Duo? You'll do it, right? Please?" Quatre turned wide, pleading eyes on him. Duo got that sinking feeling in his gut that told him was done for. "Pleeeease?"
He groaned. "Fine. Fine! Fine."
Quatre grinned. "Thank you, Duo!" He ate another melon bell, happiness radiating off him in waves. Duo lifted his panini, which now looked as dispirited as he felt from his squeezing it in shock so many times, and sighed.
Duo picked up the gift that was supposed to be from him with a little patter of trepidation. Pasting a sickly grin on his face, he passed it to Quatre. "Here you go," he said loudly. "This one's from me. Wink-wink."
Trowa looked at him. "This is some kind of practical joke, isn't it."
"Ha ha," Duo said. "You know me." Bastard, he added silently.
Quatre was a little too eager as he ripped off the paper, and to Duo's jaundiced eye he looked like he knew exactly what he was getting. When the cover came into view, Quatre even turned a rosy pink, looking up at Trowa with a mix of guilty anticipation and very fake surprise.
Trowa plucked it from Quatre's hands and read the title aloud. "The Cosmic Kama Sutra: Seventy-Seven New Mind-Blowing Positions," he said.
Heero snickered. Sally looked vaguely intrigued, but Relena only blushed prettily.
Duo thought he was probably supposed to waggle his eyebrows or something, but all he could manage was an uncomfortable flush and a weird gurgle that was half denial.
"Thank you, Duo," Quatre said, taking the book back and sneaking sideways glances at Trowa. "We'll-- um-- get a lot of use out of that."
"Just so we're clear," Trowa added, "next year, a toaster will be fine."
"Heh," Duo said. "Toaster. Right."
It was late when they were leaving, and Duo had to move his car to let Wufei out of the drive. They walked out together, trying to shake off lethargy from too much cake.
"So," Wufei said. "Good party."
"Yeah."
"You bought them a book about sex."
Duo promptly turned red. "Yep. That's me. Good ol' Master of Love, bringing the joy to gay men everywhere."
Wufei stopped walking, necessitating that Duo also stop in order to keep looking at him. Wufei looked far more amused than he had any right to. "You didn't buy that book," he guessed cannily.
"It's a long story which I will be in no wise repeating," Duo warned him.
Wufei chuckled, and he walked Duo down to his car. "Do you think they'll actually use it?"
"I hope to God and all the archangels that I never, ever know," Duo said fervently.
Two days later, his phone rang. He pushed away from his computer to answer, tapping it on and revealing Quatre's face.
Quatre launched in without bothering with little courtesies like "Hello." "Duo!" he complained. "It didn't work."
"What didn't work?" It slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. Duo sighed, and prepared himself to be shocked.
It didn't take long. Quatre launched into the story at full-speed, a little pout hovering around his mouth as he talked. "Last night I pretended to be all hot and bothered by the pictures. Well, pretended may be the wrong word." Duo winced. "Except he just laughed at me and when we had sex it was the same old thing. What went wrong?"
"You could try honesty," Duo suggested pointedly.
Quatre glared at him. "If Hilde had ever told you the sex was inadequate, how would you have felt?"
He sat very still for a moment. "All right," he said. "Point taken."
Quatre rubbed both hands over his face. "What am I supposed to do, Duo?"
"I can't believe I'm even going to suggest this," Duo muttered, propping his feet up on the table beside the phone's screen. "You could-- you know-- seduce him."
Quatre warmed to that quickly. "Like... set everything up... maybe a hot bath after he gets home from work-- he's always the one who takes charge of that kind of thing--"
"Really?" It was out before he could stop himself, again. His mouth was always getting him into trouble. Duo held up a hand to stop anything he didn't actually want to hear his best friend say about what he did with other men, particularly Trowa. "So, yeah. Seduce him. Show him how much, um, fun, the other stuff is."
"You're brilliant!" Quatre enthused. "I could kiss you!"
"I don't think that's the kind of spice you're looking for," Duo said drily.
Quatre plunked down opposite him and glared at a waiter until the man hurried over. "Spaghetti bolognese," he ordered shortly. "And non-alcoholic beer." Then he transferred his scowl to Duo, who took that to mean he was going to order whether he was ready or not.
"Ditto," he told the server. "But real beer for me."
"Tap or-- um-- bottled?" the waiter asked, flinching when Quatre looked at him.
"Tap is fine," Duo said quickly. "Stella. Thanks," he called after the man as he fled.
"It didn't work," Quatre told him, as soon as they were alone.
"So I gathered." Duo closed his menu and set it aside. "Tell me what went wrong, using the least descriptive words possible."
"The bath went fine. Then we had champagne and strawberries. I totally took the lead, just like you said to do. I put on his favourite CD, I had incense in the bedroom, and I said maybe we could try page 42, that had looked sort of interesting, and he laughed at me. "
"Not promising," Duo agreed.
"He said we didn't need some book telling us how to make love," Quatre said, outrage colouring every word. "He laughed at me, Duo!"
"Well, clearly he's just not into the whole... experimenting part," he said. "I don't know what you want me to do about it. I didn't even buy the book to begin with. I'm not some gay man's sex guru."
"It's getting pathetic!" Quatre raged on, ignoring his interruption. "I couldn't even go through with it after that. So now we're both angry at each other and he's gone away to a job site for the next three days. We never used to go to bed angry at each other. Three days! What if he decides he doesn't want to be with me if I let it get so bad? What if he comes back and says we should take a break? Or break up!"
"He's not going to do that," Duo said soothingly. "You seriously don't argue? Hilde and I used to argue all the time."
"And you broke up!"
That was true. "I don't think the arguing was the main factor, though. It had a lot more to do with her mother coming over to rearrange the furniture while we were at work. And things like incompatible long-term-goals. Mostly her mother."
Quatre's eyes were tragic. "I messed up, Duo. I should never have gone into that stupid bookstore."
"I really think it's not that bad. You had a little miscommunication. You really should just try to be honest with him. Sex is an important part of a relationship."
The waiter returned with their drinks. He smiled nervously at Duo, but ducked his head as he handed Quatre his, and then he scurried away as if he were afraid of getting bit.
Quatre calmed a little as he drank. "You really think I could just talk to him?"
"Absolutely," Duo said firmly. "The worst he can do is disagree, and then it's just a matter of compromising until you're both happy. You know, he probably thinks you're not serious about it. Trowa's not the most subtle person in the world. You can't manipulate him unless he knows he's being manipulated."
"You're right. You're always right." Quatre sighed, and propped his chin on his hand. "You're a good friend, Duo."
"I know." Duo drank some of his beer, then thought to add, "But seriously, for my birthday, a toaster is fine."
Quatre called on Thursday. "It didn't work," was all he said.
Most of the light in Trowa's office was aimed at a large bush that had overgrown its pot by the window and conquered the table it sat on. Duo stared at it, wondering if it was ever going to get large enough to animate, then eat, Trowa. And how any of them would know.
Trowa finally got out of his meeting, and came in talking over his shoulder to someone. He stopped when he saw Duo sitting in front of the desk, then smiled his little smile. "Hi, Duo," he said distractedly. "I thought Mondays and Fridays were your lunch dates with Quatre?"
"Normally, yeah," he answered. "Hey, you, uh, you got a minute?"
"Of course." Trowa waved off whoever he'd been talking to, and closed the door. He dropped into his chair behind the desk with a sigh, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar. "What's up?"
"You need to have different sex with Quatre," Duo said.
Trowa spent a lot of time blinking after that. Then he grabbed the stapler off his desk, flexing it while he stared at the window. "I didn't know you two talked about-- us."
"Quatre's kind of a girl about that stuff." Well, it had started when Duo and Hilde were on the rocks and Duo needed someone to talk to about it-- bitch to, really-- but all that was too much to go into. "Trust me, I'd prefer it if I didn't know that you two did anything other than hold hands." Duo shifted uneasily. "But the thing is, I think he's kind of at an age where the same old stuff is getting-- well, not uninteresting, but you know--"
"No," Trowa said flatly. "I don't."
Duo felt a flush creeping up his neck. "He bought the sex book," he blurted. "He wants to try new things. With you. In-- bed."
Trowa turned his head to look at Duo. "Wait, he bought that book?"
"Yeah." Duo shifted again, to sit on his hands. "He asked me to pretend to give it to him, because he wasn't comfortable just telling you, you know, what I just said. And he's really upset about the whole fracas now."
"It's not a fracas," Trowa said grudgingly. "I didn't realise... I thought he was just going along with it because you bought the book and you're his friend. God knows he went out of his way to use that damn five-mode electric razor-toothbrush-eyebrow trimmer thing Heero got him last year. Even after it practically shaved his head."
Duo couldn't hold back a chuckle at that. "He will do anything for his friends," he agreed. "But let's not get side-tracked, I can't take much more of this. He's just looking for more ways to be with you."
"There's nothing wrong with the way we're together now."
That annoyed him. "Honestly?" he demanded. "I know you've eaten yoghurt every day for lunch for, like, eight years or something, but don't you occasionally get a yearning for something different? Think of this as-- as deciding on chicken tika massala for lunch. Something a little exotic and different. You'll go back to the yoghurt tomorrow, but you'll enjoy the splurge."
Trowa turned a little pink when he said "splurge," which made Duo turn red, and then they both sat quietly for a little while.
Finally Trowa said, "You came all the way out here to tell me how to have sex with my boyfriend."
"And you better do it, because I will never, ever, ever do this again," Duo told him.
He was late to lunch on Monday because of a traffic jam, and he was going to have to cut it short in order to meet a deadline on the programme he was writing. He slid into his seat at their usual table, grabbing the menu from the stack and glaring down at it.
"Why don't we order a pizza?" Quatre asked him. "Maybe the Hawaiian?"
Duo looked up at his friend for the first time since he'd arrived. "You don't like pineapple."
"I don't dis like it." Quatre buried his face back in the menu. "And maybe one of those huge salads? With sardines."
Duo lowered his menu. "Who are you, and where's the pod?"
Quatre's cheeks were blushing, but he was smiling. "I want to do something nice for you."
Duo began to grin. "It worked, didn't it."
Quatre grabbed his wrist. "It was so perfect. He said he'd thought really hard about it and decided that what I was trying to say is that we shouldn't just be content with what we've got, we should always be looking for ways to make it better, which is exactly right, Duo! I hadn't even really thought of it that way, I just wanted better sex, but when he said it like that it was so romantic, and then we had-- well, you don't want to know this part-- but it was so amazing, and then afterward we sat and looked at the book together and decided which ones we were going to try and--"
"We're back at things I don't want to know," Duo told him hastily. He squeezed Quatre's hand, and let him go. "I'm really glad, Quat. So everything's back to normal?"
"Normal, but better," Quatre said. He beamed at Duo, that special two-hundred-watt smile that only Quatre had. "You're my best friend, you know. The best friend ever."
"I know," Duo replied modestly. "But you don't have to eat sardines to prove it."
The End
(:./erin/normal)
