A/N: 31 Days of Smut! Day 1! This is a "casual and cute 2x3 with a bubble bath" requested by shinigami-irae over on the tumblr.
A/N 2: I live for reviews. Even if it's just "loved it" - every review makes my day and inspires me to write more.
A/N: A special and enormous thanks to Maevemauvaise who, in addition to exchanging all caps frantic typing with me is taking on the dubious honor of beta reading for me. THANK you so much.
Warnings: fluff, smut, language, bubbles
Pairings: 2x3
March 1: Bath Time
"What are you doing?"
Trowa arched an eyebrow at Duo's tone, looking at him with an expression that conveyed both amusement and irritation. It was an expression that Duo had grown very, very familiar with over the years.
"I'm filling the bathtub."
"Yeah, I noticed that part. Thanks, Commander Snark. Why? You already took a shower this morning."
Duo, confined as he was to the bed they shared unless he had assistance moving, could recite Trowa's entire morning routine - could even tell Trowa how long he had spent in the shower - nineteen minutes, five minutes less than the day before - so he didn't understand just why Trowa was bothering with a bath now. Had work really been that rough? Was sitting at a desk and reading intel briefs all day so exhausting that the man needed a bath?
Duo found himself resentful -here he was, stuck at home alone all day with only shitty Terran vid series to watch while he procrastinated wading through the mountain of files he was supposed to review, and when Trowa finally gets home, when Duo finally has someone to talk to - the man jumps into the bath?
"It's not for me. It's for the bum who hasn't washed himself in a week."
Trowa crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe between the bathroom and bedroom.
Duo glared and gestured to his left leg, encased in plaster from just above his knee all the way down to and including his foot.
"Tell me how the hell I'm supposed to shower when I'm not even allowed to put weight on this thing yet?" It had been horribly embarrassing to have Trowa carry him to the car when they left the hospital, for Trowa to carry him into their house when they arrived home. Despite strict orders not to put weight on his leg yet, Duo drew the line at using a bedpan or having to wait around for Trowa to carry him to the damn toilet so he insisted on hobbling to it himself, exhausted and aching and furious every time.
He was lucky, the doctor had insisted, that despite the fact that his leg had been broken in three places when Duo jumped from a building seconds before the damn thing blew up, the breaks had been clean. Lucky that he would probably have decent - though probably not full - mobility after months and months of physical therapy.
Lucky was not how Duo felt. He felt like shit and having Trowa call him a dirty bum wasn't helping matters.
"Why do you think I'm filling the bathtub?"
Duo scowled.
"I'm not supposed to get it wet."
Trowa rolled his eyes.
"Then I'll wrap it in plastic."
"I can wrap it myself," Duo insisted.
Trowa arched an eyebrow again.
Duo sighed.
"If you'll just… bring it in here for me."
Trowa gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel.
Duo let himself fall back down on the bed and closed his eyes.
The sound of running water as oddly soothing, and as much as Duo wanted to hold onto his anger, by the time Trowa came back with a plastic trash bag, Duo felt calmer.
Trowa watched him struggle with the damn thing but to his credit made no move to intervene.
Once Duo had pulled the drawstring on the top of the bag closed, he shifted over to the side of the bed.
Trowa stepped closer, ready to pick him up, but Duo held up a hand and glared at him.
Trowa shrugged and moved away, and even though Duo could very clearly see judgement in his green eyes, the other man remained silent as Duo struggled off the bed.
Undressing, at least, didn't present much of a challenge. Duo pulled off his t-shirt and shoved his boxers down his legs before he made his way into the bathroom.
Bubbles. There were bubbles overflowing the top of the bathtub and Duo had to turn and glare at Trowa.
"What?" Trowa looked taken aback by Duo's renewed irritation.
"A damn bubble bath? What am I - a kid who needs to have my hand held and bubbles to get me interested in cleaning myself?"
Trowa frowned but didn't say anything, didn't try to defend himself or argue with Duo and that made Duo sigh again. Made him even more irritated and filled him with guilt because whenever Trowa shut up - whenever he refused to fight back it meant that Duo had hurt him somehow.
"Fuck's sake," Duo muttered to himself and stumbled towards the bathtub.
He stared down at it. He had no idea how the hell he was supposed to get in it without submerging his leg which, even wrapped in plastic, wasn't exactly waterproof.
Duo scowled at sat down on the edge of the tub.
Maybe if he just -
He started to turn and immediately felt himself start to slip.
Just before he hit the water Trowa was there, lifting him up and holding him.
Duo clenched his hands into fists as he felt his face burn red.
"This is a dumb fucking idea," he bit out. "Put me down and I'll skip the damn bath."
Trowa snorted.
"If you want to skip the bath then you have to skip sharing my bed. You're starting to smell."
That stung.
Duo swallowed hard and looked away from Trowa's face.
"Then I'll sleep on the couch - or will my stench still be too overpowering? Want me to move out and -"
"I want you to let me take care of you," Trowa interrupted, voice sharp and his hands tightening on Duo's body.
Duo found it hard to swallow, hard to breathe and hell, even hard to see. He blinked furiously and clenched his jaw tight until he knew he would be able to speak in an even voice.
"I don't want you to take care of me."
"You need me to."
"I don't want to need you to," Duo heard his voice break and he glanced at Trowa's face.
Trowa was frowning.
"You and I are in this together, Duo. You're my tether."
Trowa had said that him before, a few months after they had started fucking casually, when he had seen Duo bring home another guy and confronted him the next day about it. Trowa needed Duo, needed Duo to be his and he needed Duo to want him for more than another dick in his rotation.
Duo drew in a ragged breath.
"And you're mine," he admitted, for the first time. It was true, maybe now more than ever, because Duo literally counted down the minutes each day until Trowa got home from Preventers headquarters. He craved Trowa's touch, committed his face to memory. He needed Trowa and it made him angry as hell.
"Then let me take care of you. I want to. I need to."
Trowa's voice sounded just as raw as Duo felt.
Duo sighed and decided to give in.
He nodded and Trowa maneuvered him into the bathtub, propping his leg up over the side of the free-standing tub.
"Where the hell did these even come from?" Duo asked, fluffy at the bubbles that, he hated to admit, smelled amazing and felt like silk against his skin.
"Quatre. He gave you all of that high-end bath stuff two years ago."
"I thought we got rid of that when we moved."
"No," Trowa said and knelt down beside the tub.
Duo lifted an eyebrow and regarded him with curiosity.
"What are you doing?"
"Thought I would help you wash your hair."
Duo bit back his immediate urge to say no.
Hadn't they just talked about this.
"Okay," Duo gave in again.
Trowa smirked slightly, not enough to piss Duo off but definitely enough to remind them both that he had won, and set to work unbraiding Duo's hair.
It felt amazing, Trowa's fingers threading through his hair, massaging his scalp and cradling his tilted head when he finally rinsed out the shampoo and then the conditioner.
Duo heard himself humming in satisfaction and knew he had to be acting like the damn cat, purring and arching under Trowa's touch like this.
"I could wash your back too," Trowa offered.
Duo opened his eyes and regarded him.
"Yeah, okay."
Same smirk, same incredible feeling as Trowa ran the sponge over Duo's skin, gentle and then hard, his touch firm and damn, it felt so good to be touched again. Even if it was just getting bathed.
"Lean back."
Duo had to frown at the command.
"Why?"
"So I can clean the rest of you."
Trowa had given him a sponge bath his first night home, which had resulted in Duo gritting his teeth against his pain and irritation for twenty minutes until Trowa finished. Trowa had to do it again this last week and Duo had flatly refused. He wasn't a damned invalid - even if he was, in fact, unable to care for himself.
But it felt good. Felt really good.
So Duo leaned back in the tub, resting his neck against the edge and closing his eyes and just letting go of his anger.
"Wufei and Heero got into it again in the mess hall," Trowa said, his voice just as soothing as the sponge he ran over Duo's arms.
"Oh? Sanitation not up to Wufei's high standards or something?"
"Apparently some of the Intel officers have been bumping field recruits out of line. Wufei decided to blame it on Heero."
Duo snorted. He could see it in his mind, Wufei and Heero with trays in hand, snarling at each other over people cutting in line in the mess hall.
Trowa moved from Duo's arms down to his chest and Duo sighed in contentment.
"Une is on the warpath again too. Something about interdepartmental filings not be properly color coded."
Duo found himself grinning. He realized what Trowa was doing - feeding him boring office gossip to relax him. It was the same thing Trowa usually did whenever Duo returned from a mission, whenever they lay side by side in bed, home still too new for Duo to relax in yet. Trowa would keep space between them, would refrain from pulling Duo against his body the way he preferred to sleep and would simply lay there and whisper all kinds of boring shit until Duo fell asleep or reached back to pull Trowa against him. It always helped, somehow, to know just how mundane life was, how utterly predictable people were and hearing about it in Trowa's voice always helped Duo calm down and negotiate his way back to reality.
"Sally broke up with that guy in public relations."
"Oh yeah?"
"Mhm. He tracked her down and accused her of breaking his heart just for fun - delivered this fifteen minute long speech in front of her entire department before crying and running off."
"And he's in PR you said?"
"Not for long, I'm sure."
Duo chuckled at that, but the sound turned into a gasp as the sponge in Trowa's hand moved low on his belly, almost but not quite tickling him.
"You realize that Wufei has offered me good money to tell him where you're ticklish," Trowa said.
Duo opened one eye to stare at him.
"And you realize we would never, ever have sex again if you betrayed me like that."
Trowa smirked and he leaned his face down to kiss Duo's hand where it rested on the side of the tub.
"Sex over money then," Trowa murmured.
Duo closed his eye again.
"You keep doing this and I'm going to fall asleep in here. It -" Duo hesitated and hated himself for that hesitation, "It feels wonderful."
"Good. But I can't have you falling asleep on me."
Trowa's hand moved lower still and the sponge brushed over Duo's cock and his balls in one clean sweep that, as clinical as it felt, had Duo shifting in the tub.
"How long has it been?"
Trowa asked as his hand, now without a sponge in the way, gripped Duo's soft cock in a loose hold.
In the week that Duo had been home he had been too disgusted with himself to even think about masturbation; the week before that he had been in the hospital, too doped up on pain meds to even have any success getting off if he had wanted to; and while he had definitely masturbated while undercover, had allowed himself a few precious minutes every now and then to think about Trowa and touch himself in the shower, that had been a while ago too now.
"Three - four weeks," Duo admitted.
"Something you'd like me to help you with, then?"
Trowa's hand was moving slowly, fingers and hand moving in a loose massage that had lust slowly coiling in Duo's belly.
He opened his eyes and looked at Trowa.
The green-eyed man's gaze was steady, not even a little triumphant although he had to know that he was asking Duo to admit he wanted - needed Trowa's help.
"Yeah," Duo nodded. "Please," he added for good measure.
The word seemed to surprise Trowa, who smiled ever so slightly before tightening his fingers into gentle but firm hold around Duo's semi-erect cock.
"I think Sally has been hooking up with a woman in IT - at least for this past week. She's certainly had a lot of computer viruses that have needed to be taken care of."
Trowa's voice was still that same low, even tone and it was almost monotonous, would have put Duo to sleep if Trowa's hand wasn't on his cock, slowly working the flesh up and down, twisting slightly in the way that Trowa knew Duo loved.
"Oh yeah?" Duo managed to ask.
"Mm. And there are the long lunch breaks. Sally hasn't been to the mess hall in days - nor has the woman from IT. I wonder how they do it."
"What? How they eat outside the mess hall?"
Trowa squeezed Duo's cock tightly before returning to his previous hold.
"No. I wonder how they fuck. At work anyway. Do you think they do it against the wall - maybe she sits on Sally's lap - remember Sally's got that leather desk chair she commandeered from Wufei's office? - but if Sally went down on her… probably she lays her out on the desk. What do you think?"
Duo found himself thrusting up into Trowa's hand, the man's hypothetical discussion of Sally's inter-office sex life turning him on in an unexpected way. He gripped the side of the tub tightly and grunted.
"I don't - I don't know."
"Face down or face up, do you think?" Trowa sounded genuinely intrigued, as if this line of thought were some intelligence briefing he was considering. "I suppose it depends on whether or not she likes rimming? It would be an awkward angle for her head otherwise. Which do you prefer? Do you like it better when I'm eating out your ass and jerking you off or when I'm sucking your dick and fingering you?"
"Jesus Christ Trowa!"
Duo could vividly recall the last time either of those had happened. Trowa had last spread him over his large and disturbingly clutter free desk the night before Duo shipped out for this mission, had pushed Duo down onto his back and sucked on his cock as though he was afraid to never taste it again. The other - the last time Trowa had pushed him face down onto the desk more than a little roughly, had held one hand on Duo's neck to keep him in place while he shoved Duo's pants down and fucked him, slowly, methodically and silently before then sitting down and licking his own cum out of Duo's ass while he jerked him off - had been months ago, after they had sparred in the Preventers gym and both been keyed up and unsatisfied.
"Wonder if they've moved on to the hiding under the desk phase yet?" Trowa asked, his voice the definition of idle curiosity.
If Duo wasn't experiencing it, he never would have guessed that Trowa's hand was rapidly bringing Duo to the brink of orgasm.
Duo found himself breathing heavily and unevenly as he felt pressure build in his groin. He finally opened his eyes and he found that Trowa was looking at him, was enjoying just how much his words and his hand were affecting Duo.
"Maybe they're still a few weeks away from that," Trowa mused, his hand firmer and his pace faster to match Duo's increasingly erratic upwards thrusts. Water and bubbles sloshed against the edge of the tub, dangerously close to overflowing. "After all, we'd been fucking for two months before I sucked you off under your desk while Heero gave you a lecture on proper office protocol."
Duo laughed at that, the memory one of his favorites, but his laughter quickly turned into a moan.
"Trowa - Tro -"
"Close?"
"Uh huh."
"Then come."
"I - I want -" Duo was finding it incredibly difficult to focus on anything other than the hand on his cock or the way that Trowa's eyes seemed to be laughing at him.
"What do you want?"
"You. Kiss me."
"Kiss you? After you've been such a brat all week? You really think I'm going to reward that kind of behavior?"
"Please. Fuck - fuck, please Trowa."
"Say please again."
"Please!"
Trowa leaned over, swiftly catching Duo's mouth with his own in a forceful kiss that sent Duo over the edge. He came with a shout into Trowa's mouth and he grabbed Trowa's shoulders, holding him in place while he spent himself into Trowa's hand, into the bubbles and the bath water and he found himself shaking with the effort of coming.
"Holy shit," he breathed when he finally came back down, when his heart was no longer pounding and he could breathe again. "Holy shit, thank you."
Duo laid back against the tub and he couldn't help but notice how pleased with himself Trowa looked.
"See what happens when you just admit you need help?"
-o-
Endnote: Hey! If you're enjoying the 31 Days of Smut, or just my writing in general, check out the ebook I published on Amazon it's cheap (or free if you have Kindle Unlimited) and super smutty. It's Ponyboy by C. Barton.