Disclaimer: The song The Little Drummer Boy is not mine. FAKE is not mine (though if Ms. Matoh would like to give them to me as a Holiday gift, I'd surely not complain!); Lemony Snicket and his works are not mine. In fact, I don't own a damn thing! And if anything, writing this costs me money.
Drummer Boy
Chapter One: Come, They Told Me
By: Irish
o – o – o –
"Come, they told me
bah rum bah bah bum
A newborn king to see
bah rum bah bah bum
Our finest gifts we bring
bah rum bah bah bum
To lay before the king
bah rum bah bah bum
rum bah bah bum rum bah bah bum rum bah bah bum
So to honor him
bah rum bah bah bum
When we come"
Dee had known something was up the minute Ryo had suggested Bikky spend the night at Lee's, blushing heatedly as he did. Nor was what was "up" Ryo. No matter what that blush implied. Dee could tell because Ryo wouldn't meet his eyes. Bikky had left, and Ryo had gone out of his way to "pamper" Dee. Unfortunately, that had involved Ryo making dinner. Dee loved his partner, and would never tell him how terrible his cooking was. He'd cleaned his plate of over-peppered, super-soggy spaghetti twice.
Dee was absolutely positive Ryo was up to something, when after dinner, he suggested they retire to their room immediately. Dee had gone to clean up quick, and when he came back, Ryo had been wearing the sexiest pair of underwear he owned, a pair of black briefs. The room was dark accept for a few candles and there was music playing. Honestly, Ryo might as well have taken out a billboard that said 'there's something I have to tell you that you aren't going to like'. Seduction just wasn't Ryo's thing. Not that he wasn't sexy, but he just had no natural smoothness, so it always came out staged. Dee generally found it very endearing. Tonight though, knowing something was up, endearing wasn't in the top five adjectives Dee would have picked.
"Okay, why don't you just tell me, Ryo," Dee said, leaning in the doorway in just his jeans.
"Tell you what?" Ryo tried to ask innocently. His gaze was anything but innocent though as it raked Dee's muscular frame, jeans unbuttoned and hanging off his hips, reveling the v of his torso and line of dark hair that tapered down to… Ryo cleared his throat.
"Whatever it is that you're hoping I'll accept more readily once you've befuddled me with sex," Dee replied, trying very hard to look through his lover, instead of at him. Annoyed as Dee was, it was almost impossible to ignore Ryo's smooth, pale, skin. Not to mention the early holiday package that had popped up under those briefs.
"Dee! It's not… I don't… okay well… but you see…" Ryo was backpedaling himself in circles.
Dee sighed, coming into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He sat down on the edge of the bed, turned towards Ryo. "Really, why don't you just tell me? Then we can deal with it and move on."
"Fine, Mr. Detective," Ryo grumbled. He sat up a bit more, leaning back against the headboard and drawing up his knees. It was a little chilly to be lying about naked. "It's about Christmas. My aunt is having her Christmas thing on Christmas Eve this year. I don't know why, but she is. I have to be there." Ryo paused, watching Dee's expression darken like and incoming rainstorm. This was not going to go well at all.
"You don't have to go. Nor will I be upset if you choose not to. I know that you take Christmas pretty seriously and that my aunt doesn't. I won't hold it against you for a second if you want to stay in the city and go to Mass." Ryo didn't fully understand himself. Although Dee was deeply spiritual and faithful, and general tacked that faith onto the Catholic structure because it was what he knew, Ryo didn't quite understand Dee's intense feelings about Christmas. He didn't give a flying monkey about Easter, which should have been a more important holiday if it was an issue of religion. Dee usually went to Mass at least once on Christmas Eve, sometimes even twice, and then again on Christmas day. The issue wasn't whether or not Ryo understood it, though; it was about what was important to Dee.
Dee looked at him a very long moment, then snorted derisively. "Oh bull shit."
"What? Dee, I'm not lying! I know how important Christmas is to you! I wouldn't be mad at all!" Ryo responded, offended that Dee would think that.
"No, I know you wouldn't. Your aunt, on the other hand, will never forgive me. On the other hand, she'll never forgive me for coming either, so, I guess it doesn't matter." Dee shook his head, looking out the window. The snow in the city had been around for about a week, and was gritty and gray.
"Dee, she…" Ryo trailed off and bit his lip. "I don't think she means… I mean… maybe you take it all a bit too personally."
Dee opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head, looking out the window again. After a moment he looked at Ryo once more. "I know you have to believe that, that she means no harm, I understand how she feels, believe it or not. However, personal or not, no matter what I do, she's going to comment."
Ryo just looked at Dee, not replying. Dee and his aunt and uncle didn't get along. Ryo had some fault in that. Part of it went back to when he and Dee were first partners, before they were lovers, and Ryo had spent a lot of time complaining to his aunt at length about his new partner. Ryo was also pretty sure that Dee just had a persecution complex about the situation because he felt out of place around Ryo's family. Dee tended to be both very insecure and rather classist towards the upper and upper middle class.
"I need to think about it," Dee said finally, unhappily. He glanced at Ryo again. "I suppose I should just blow out these candles, turn on the lamp and hand you your reading glasses and flannel pajamas?" Dee sighed.
"Don't tell me you're seriously still interested," Ryo raised a skeptical eyebrow. Dee opened his mouth once, shut it, and started over, apparently rethinking whatever his original response was.
"No, I suppose not," Dee said quietly. He reached over to the bedside table and handed Ryo his glasses and book, then got up and pulled Ryo's pajamas out of the drawer, tossing them onto the bed. He pulled on a shirt himself.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" Ryo asked, frowning. That was rather unlike Dee.
"Not yet,"
"Are you really that angry?"
"No, I'm not angry Ryo," Dee shook his head. "I just…" he shrugged, having no words to explain what he was feeling. He felt like he had been neatly maneuvered into a corner, and now all the options were bad. He was still interested in having sex, craving the physical intimacy that he found soothing and as tangible evidence that things really were okay between them. He couldn't handle even a little cold shouldering from Ryo right now, without becoming retardedly anxious, and since Ryo was already doing a little of that… it was best just to be in the other room until Ryo fell asleep.
Ryo watched him a long moment, then his expression softened. "Come here," he murmured. "And take your damned clothes off, would you?"
Dee did as he was told, stripping out of the shirt he'd just put on and his jeans, pulling on some flannel pants instead. More appropriately dressed, he slipped under the covers with Ryo. When Ryo held open his arms, Dee went to them readily, curling up against Ryo's side, resting his head on Ryo's chest.
"Where's that book we've been reading from, hmm?" Ryo set aside his own book, and reached over Dee to the bedside stand, fishing around for fourth book in a children's series by a man named Lemony Snicket. They'd borrowed them from Bikky.
Dee sighed softly and closed his eyes, settling more as Ryo's voice washed over him, his scent, the feel of his skin and beating heart filled Dee's senses. It was soothing, calming. It was something Dee would do anything to keep. He would walk to the ends of the earth for Ryo with out even a moment of hesitation. He could certainly brave a family function. It wouldn't be the first Midnight Mass he'd missed.
- o – o – o -
"… the Baudelaire orphans were alive, and it seemed that maybe they had an inordinate amount of luck after all," Ryo finished about an hour later, closing the book and setting it aside. He looked down at the raven head of his lover. Dee had barely moved. Dee wasn't a reader, but he really enjoyed it when Ryo read to him. Ryo had actually gotten him a couple of audio books as gifts, hoping that Dee would take to them. He leaned down and kissed Dee's hair softly. "Are you still awake?" Ryo whispered.
"Yeah baby, I'm still awake. I think I liked the first and second best so far. Not that that one was bad. What's the next?"
"The Austere Academy, a word which here means severe and strict… Like Sister Mary Thomas," Ryo smiled as he felt Dee smile.
"Really? Because I was hoping it was a word that here meant sexy…" Dee teased, and Ryo felt the brush of his lover's lips against his chest.
"I don't think that definition would be appropriate for a children's book, nor accepted by most publisher and editors of dictionaries. However, I write neither children's books nor dictionaries, so, sexy it is," Ryo laughed softly, shivering under Dee's caress.
They made love slowly, tenderly. It wasn't always like that. All too often it was a quickie in the shower before work, at night they were often both too exhausted. Tonight, though, they found the energy, and it was more then worth it.
As they lay together afterwards, Dee spooned so protectively around his lover, he whispered. "I'll go,"
Authors Note: This is a mini story, which will probably be three or four chapters long. A little Holiday gift for everyone. My goal is to get it finished by the end of Christmas Day. Don't worry; I'm working hard on Ordinary Heroes too. I'm struggling to find a balance between the crime drama and the personal drama. I'm also hoping to get out another chapter of Redefining Heaven before I go back to school on the fourteenth, as well as another chapter of Blackbird (everyone should check that out, even if you aren't a Mercedes Lackey fan). Balkeirv is on the back burner, unfortunately. Also, keep your eye on my A/N I may post some of my original work The King's Man on my blog, if I do, I'll surely let you know. Happy Holidays!