26-Aug-2004
Title: Orange Blossoms
Author: Mookie
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: NC17
Warnings: semi-graphic m/m sex
Notes: in response to Natalie Thompson's request for a meme drabble titled "Orange Blossoms" and containing the line "You're kidding me, right?"
Duo lay on his back in bed, waiting for the sound of running water from the bathroom to indicate that Heero was coming to bed. It was under a minute from the time that the thought crossed his mind to when Heero appeared in the doorway and turned off the overhead light.
Heero crawled into bed next to him and gave him a good night kiss, then started to roll over when Duo cleared his throat loudly. Chagrined, Heero turned back around and let his lips brush against Duo's again before he parted them enough to allow Duo's tongue entrance. He made a humming sound as they parted, and Duo grinned at him.
"Good night, Heero."
Another light graze of lips against lips and a soft return of the sentiment before Heero settled onto his side. Duo spooned up behind him and fell asleep soon after.
When Duo woke the next morning and joined Heero in the kitchen, he found his roommate frowning at the mug handle in his hand.
Just the handle.
A quick glance at the floor confirmed the damage. Heero's favorite coffee mug was history.
Upon seeing Duo in the doorway, Heero bent to clean up the broken shards. Once the pieces were disposed of, he selected a plain, unadorned replacement from the cupboard and poured first Duo, then himself a cup.
Duo couldn't help noticing Heero's finger idly rubbing the smooth surface of the mug, right where the gaudy raised design used to be. When Heero noticed the direction of Duo's gaze, he stopped.
Heero had received the cup as a joke - a gift from one of his coworkers for the date he'd selected for his birthday. An ugly avocado color, worse than any army's idea of olive green, with a garish orange flower covering both sides, large, but sadly not large enough to block the horrid green from sight.
It was the most godawful ugly thing Duo had ever seen in his life, and that was saying something.
Yet, for some reason, Heero had been fond of it.
Duo had teased him about being color-blind once, and for a split second Heero looked almost crestfallen, then he'd gotten that determined look in his eye, and started pointing to the various colors on the mug. And the kitchen, as well as the rest of the apartment.
Within the span of ten minutes, Duo's head had been spinning. Who knew Heero had even heard of such colors as absinthe, Turkey red, and beryl?
Heero washed out his plain white cup and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth before leaving for work. Duo picked up his own mug and quickly soaped and rinsed it, then placed it next to Heero's in the dish rack.
Seeing them side by side, he noticed how much they looked alike. Both white, smooth, and completely interchangeable. Not even a chip differentiated them from one another.
Duo shook his head and joined Heero in the bathroom, sneaking past Heero's shoulder to snag his toothbrush out of the plastic cup shaped like a fish.
Heero's eyes flicked down to Duo's hand, grasping the plastic handle of a bright red toothbrush, and he spit into the sink without a word.
Duo couldn't help feeling he was missing something.
Duo sat at the computer while Heero lounged on the couch, alternating leafing through a sports magazine and watching a game show. Even when he seemed absorbed in one article or another, he would still answer the trivia questions under his breath.
Duo almost found it annoying how Heero was always right, too. There had to be a question that Heero couldn't answer on one of these game shows some day, and he hoped to be there when it was asked.
Thinking of Heero reminded him that he'd meant to visit that website, and to his delight, he found what he was looking for. He frowned slightly when he saw that he still had three days to wait, but he thought he had a good chance of obtaining the item anyway.
He marked it as an item to watch and then went to check his e-mail before logging off.
"It's all yours," he said, gesturing to the computer. Heero nodded without looking up from the magazine, but Duo knew that before he'd finished taking his shower Heero would be seated at the computer, his hands flying over the keyboard.
In an hour, Heero would make his way to the bathroom, then join him in bed.
Perhaps tonight Heero might be feeling a bit more amorous than he had the past few days and would initiate sex for a change. Duo was willing to suck Heero off or even bottom, if Heero would at least demonstrate some sort of interest in the act. He'd been rather distracted the past few nights.
It was mere coincidence that it had been right around the same time that the damn mug had broken.
Duo cursed aloud when he saw the e-mail.
YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID.
Who the hell knew anyone would possibly want to buy such an ugly thing?
"Duo? What's the matter?"
"I, ah, felt kinda bad about that mug incident," Duo confessed. "So I wanted to get you a new one."
Heero raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"I know, I know. It was one of those things that had to be picked up at a garage sale. That's why I thought of eBay."
"EBay," Heero repeated.
"Yeah, it's an online auction site-"
"Duo," Heero interrupted. "I am well aware of what eBay is. I'm just surprised."
"Well," Duo said, the corners of his mouth turning down into a pout. "I got outbid. So, I'm sorry. And I probably shouldn't even tell you that's what I was doing, because it only makes it worse that I didn't win it, but-"
"Duo."
"Yeah?"
"It's all right." With that, Heero got up and went to the kitchen to refill his glass. Duo stared glumly at the screen, thinking perhaps he shouldn't be putting so much emphasis on a bit of ceramic, and yet still feeling like he was missing something.
It was Duo's turn to do the laundry, and he knew he shouldn't have waited until the last minute. He pulled all the clothes from the dryer and dumped them into the basket, then nudged the door closed with his hip as he bent over to pick up the plastic bin.
He winced slightly as he saw Heero going through his drawers and finding no clean T-shirts. He'd just pulled one of Duo's out instead - a bright yellow one with a pair of tire marks emblazoned on the front.
He was preparing to put it on when Duo dropped the basket on the bed and pulled out a dark gray one.
Tossing it to Heero, he announced, "nothing like that dryer fresh scent, is there?"
Heero caught it one-handed and smelled it, then nodded. He looked at the yellow shirt in one hand and the gray shirt in the other, and Duo swore he saw those thick brows furrow.
Then Heero laid the gray shirt down, carefully folded the yellow one, and placed it back into the drawer before picking up his own and pulling it on.
The two of them folded the rest of the laundry together and Duo shooed Heero off to the kitchen while he put the clothes away. He almost missed the wistful look on Heero's face as they'd separated their clothes into piles.
Duo was the one up late on the computer and Heero had gone to bed earlier.
He tried to be quiet, assuming perhaps Heero was feeling a bit under the weather. If he'd been hiding it for a while, it would certainly explain a few things. Just in case, Duo didn't bother to put the light on when he entered the bedroom and stripped. He tossed his clothes in the laundry basket near the dresser and then turned toward the bed.
A faint glow was visible, reminiscent of a green glow stick, only not nearly as bright.
Duo blinked several times, watching it move slightly as the sheets rustled.
It could not possibly be what he thought it was.
He flicked on the bedside lamp.
It was.
To Duo's credit, he tried very hard not to laugh. He couldn't look Heero in the face as his eyes were riveted to the condom-covered erection that his lover was sporting.
"You're kidding, right?"
He wanted to call the words back as soon as he'd said them, and his eyes flicked to Heero's. The answer was obviously 'does it look like I'm kidding,' if Duo was able to read Heero's expression correctly.
In all the time that they'd been intimate with each other, they rarely wore condoms. Once in a while Duo had brought some home that were ribbed or studded or covered with "sensi-dots for mutual pleasure" - but none of them had really made much of a difference for anything other than making clean-up a lot easier.
Duo felt it was much more intimate without a latex barrier, and he had always assumed it was the same for Heero. He'd just done the laundry, for crying out loud. They had plenty of clean sheets.
He stopped trying to compartmentalize Heero's reasoning and put one knee on the bed, leaning toward Heero to capture his lips in a kiss.
Heero reached between Duo's legs and gently fondled him, massaging both his sac and his rapidly stiffening member. Duo pressed his weight down on Heero and gripped him firmly before pumping slowly. If Heero had lubed himself first, Duo might have worked his hand up and down the length of his shaft, teasing the tip as well, but they'd found out the hard way that too much friction on an unlubricated condom was not exactly a pleasurable experience. Besides, the novelty sheaths weren't always what one would consider "durable."
Duo certainly wasn't going to put his mouth on Heero's cock either. He'd done it once and the lingering taste of latex had turned him off blowjobs for a good while.
Heero's arms went around Duo and he thrust his tongue into Duo's mouth, mimicking the action he wanted to take with other parts of his body.
The drawer was jerked open, the tube removed, and the lamp snapped off as soon as Duo's gel covered hand wrapped itself back around Heero's arousal. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, all Duo could see was a slight shine to Heero's eyes, reflecting the light from outside, and the glow-in-the-dark greenish yellow color radiating from Heero's nether regions.
Once Heero's hands started gently teasing the cleft of his ass with a generous amount of lube, Duo wasn't too concerned with the fact that Heero's dick resembled a child's toy.
A few sweaty minutes later, the head of Heero's cock nudged at his entrance, and Duo relaxed his body as much as he could to allow Heero access.
One of the benefits of face-to-face sex was that it enabled further intimacy such as kissing, but the position also offered a short reprieve from the dreaded wet spot phenomenon. Granted, a puddle of cum wasn't the most pleasing thing to have on his stomach and chest, but Duo found it much easier to wipe himself off with a tissue than to argue over whose side of the bed they were going to "do it" on.
When Heero's body shuddered with release, Duo kissed him savagely, urging Heero to stroke him faster, harder, more insistently. He'd be damned if Heero was going to leave him hanging.
It was Heero's tongue on the side of his neck that sent him over the edge.
Duo sighed contentedly as Heero took it upon himself to clean up the resulting mess, and he slid the condom off Heero and dumped it in the wastebasket to avoid finding it stuck to his leg in the morning.
He put an arm around Heero and buried his nose between Heero's neck and shoulder, breathing deeply and feathering a few light kisses there.
Heero's hand covered Duo's, and he hummed his approval of Duo's actions.
Then he spoke, so silently that Duo wasn't sure Heero meant for him to hear the words.
"I always thought that mug was pretty ugly, Duo, but that wasn't the point."
Duo was left blinking in the dark and wishing that Heero might be a little less cryptic on occasion. Why he'd ever thought Heero was blunt was beyond him.
In the middle of the night, Duo awoke with a jerk, startling Heero, who dragged Duo's arm back over his stomach.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Duo said. "Just one of those 'felt like I was falling' dreams."
"Mmm," Heero murmured, obviously relieved it was nothing. He went back to sleep, and Duo put his head on Heero's pillow.
'I got it, Heero,' he mouthed against Heero's temple.
Heero nodded in his sleep.
There was nothing he could do about it that morning, but he had plans to make the following day's breakfast something to remember.
The fact that it was a Saturday was just icing on the cake, as far as Duo was concerned.
He made it a point to get up before Heero and started with the coffee. While it was brewing, he reached into the basket of laundry he'd done the night before and laid out clean towels, then put away some shirts and shorts for Heero before returning to the kitchen to set the table.
Heero's slow shuffling step was audible as he started walking to the kitchen.
"Duo?"
"Hey," Duo called in return. "Don't mind me. Just pretend I'm not here."
If Heero thought that was an odd request, he said nothing. He took the hint, however, and his steps faded as he headed toward the bathroom instead.
Duo sat back with his newspaper and a piece of toast and grinned as he imagined Heero's expression.
Less than ten minutes later, the water was shut off, and that was when Heero would find the first surprise. Duo nibbled on the toast and only skimmed the editorial section as he waited for Heero to join him.
"Coffee's ready," he announced unnecessarily. Heero opened the cupboard to remove a mug, and his hand hesitated slightly before he reached for the shiny new blue mug and set it down, pouring the steaming brew into it carefully. A glittering fireworks display was etched into one side, something Heero didn't notice until he turned the mug around to pick it up with his right hand.
Duo peeked over the edge of the paper to see Heero with the deep burgundy towel draped over his shoulders instead of the plain white terry he usually had, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Heero was wearing a pair of shorts with a Hawaiian print on them.
Heero sat down quietly and sipped his coffee, then reached for the comic pages that Duo had put out for him.
"Sorry it's not Sunday," Duo said, folding the paper and setting it down. "Because the comics would've been in color."
Heero picked up the mug and looked at the arcs of colored glitter against the blue ceramic. Duo's voice was soft as he said, "it reminds me of our relationship, you know." He nodded at Heero's raised eyebrow. "Fireworks are a pretty cheesy cliché, but you have to admit there have been a few times," with that he winked, "when I've thought there was a reason for that."
He got up from his chair and walked behind Heero, putting his arms around his shoulders and lifting a corner of the towel.
"I don't think you're bland, Heero. Maybe the guys got you that orange blossom mug-"
"Orange canna," Heero said.
"The tacky flower mug," Duo said, putting his lips to Heero's ear, "as a joke, but believe me Heero, you're not boring, and you sure as hell don't see things in black and white. I've never known someone whose soul possesses as many colors as you." He poked Heero for emphasis. "And your language is pretty colorful, too."
"If you start going on about my eyes," Heero said, "I'm going to vomit."
Duo released Heero and dropped to a crouch at his side. He placed his elbows on Heero's thighs and propped his chin on his hands, then looked up at Heero, who was looking more than pleased.
"I don't know," Duo teased. "The corners of your eyes crinkle when you smile. Doesn't matter if they're blue or brown or gray. It's not the colors you see..." He picked up one of Heero's hands. "It's the ones you feel."
"Never pegged you for a romantic, Maxwell."
Heero knew he was in trouble when Duo's lips widened into the most devious smile he'd ever seen.
Duo patted Heero on the leg and got up, then opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bundle wrapped in green tissue paper.
"For you," he said with a dramatic flourish.
Heero accepted the offering and peeled down the paper, then looked back up at Duo. "You got me flowers," he commented.
"I did." Duo didn't look at all repentant.
Heero looked down at the bright orange blooms, then up at Duo, and smiled again. He pulled one of the flowers free of its trappings, stood up, and stuck it firmly into Duo's braid.
Duo swore at him once, then again as he tried to remove it from his hair unsuccessfully.
As Duo muttered about the thanks he got for being a good boyfriend all the way to the bathroom, Heero lifted the flowers to his nose and inhaled, then wrinkled his nose in distaste.
Lilies were definitely not to his liking, fragrance wise.
He picked another one out and set down the rest of the bouquet, then twirled the stem in his fingers and admired the various shades of orange in the petals.
He couldn't wait to see Duo's expression when he tried out one of the bright colored "Lifesaver" condoms later that night.
He'd start with the orange one...
The End
(:./mookie/orange)
