Title: Ashes and Cloves: Insane Cashiers Can Be Fun! Part 4 of 4
Author: Heeroduo1x2x1
Feedback: Pico eats Feedback.
Disclaimer: Don't own it. I just own my little story thingy. X3
Warnings/Rating: 12; T (PG-13) for language and shonen ai; Probably A LOT of OOCness (:Shrugs: It's hard to write in Heero's perspective...), and use of big words that my mother became immeasurably confused by. :Grins impishly:
Babble: OMG! I'm UPDATING! How long has it been? Updated: 8-1-04? Geez, it's taken me… almost a year to update! What The Hell? That's insane! XD Wow. Well, all those who reviewed? You all get magic faerie dust, since you're what persuaded me to pick up the reigns once again:heart:

The sun was too goddamned perky. My head felt like it was going to split in two, the sun was shining brightly, and Duo was singing his heart out just outside my room. Whether this was a good thing, I couldn't tell you. But it didn't help with my hangover. Oh, I didn't think anything would help with the monstrous migraine caused by the six beers I'd consumed the night before. I think I came to regard that day as a kind of blessing and curse. It was the first time in a while I'd honestly had fun and that thought made the skull pounding hangover worth it.

However… Duo's singing wasn't. While normally his voice was quite nice, listening to him sing with a headache, added to the fact that he was more or less screaming along with the lyrics, didn't do much for the pounding. I averted my eyes from the window and instead focused them on the ceiling, trying to persuade my limbs to cooperate with me. It was difficult, but I eventually was able to drag myself from the bed and into the hallway. Duo's off-key singing became more pronounced, and I groaned, staggering into the living room to see him head banging along to some rock song or another. I glared at his back.

"Duo…" I growled.

He twirled and blinked, his singing coming to an abrupt halt, "Good morning, grumpy. How's your head?"

My glare intensified, "Pounding. Can you keep it to a dull roar?"

He grinned, "Yeah, sure. D'ya want some aspirin or something?"

"No," I gritted out, "Just want you to be quiet."

"Aww, but where's the fun in that? It's a beautiful day and I'd like to continue singing along with the wonderful CD shoved in your stereo player." He grinned and I swear the sun dulled slightly. It was going to be a long day, and it didn't take a genius to figure that out.

"Whatever. I'm going back to sleep." No matter what I felt for him, sleeping seemed to be ahead of joining him in whatever the hell it was he was doing.

He grinned again, "Fine, fine. Go sleep the day away!"

I turned to head back to my room, giving him a half-hearted thumbs up. I loved interactions like that, and as I plopped back down on my bed, I smiled.

"But I'm not turning off my music!"

Shit.

3 hours later found me able to function and the two of us bored beyond belief. He dug through his things in search of something to do to pass the time. He found Scrabble.

"Hah!" Duo exclaimed as he finished putting the small tiles down on the board. He seemed very pleased with this word, but I just allowed a smirk a triumph.

"Shinigami isn't an English word." I said simply. I leaned back in my chair. "It's not legal."

Duo narrowed his eyes, and hmphed. "Quid's a slang word! But you used that!"

"No, quid isn't slang. It's English. For money. We'd say something like 'I've got 5 bucks.' The British might say, 'I've got a few quid.'"

"Buck is slang! That automatically makes quid slang!" Duo smiled triumphantly, crossing his arms. "Just admit you're wrong!"

I raised an eyebrow. "The queen doesn't use slang." (1)

And on it went for the entire game. I'd put down a word, he'd remark, and vice versa, until I finally gave up and proclaimed him the winner. He grinned and stood up from the table happily, striding into the open kitchen with a superior look on his face. I shook my head and followed him, leaning against the wall by the refrigerator. In honour of my second smashing, Duo had insisted on cooking. I couldn't decide if he was plotting something or not, but I agreed.

"Aren't you full of yourself today?" I asked dryly, my arms crossed as I looked him over. He was wearing a Star Wars tee-shirt, a Finger Eleven beanie, and a pair of pink Hello Kitty pants. No shoes. His hair wasn't in it's usual braid, but was pulled back in a loose ponytail near the nape of his neck. The Hello Kitty pants didn't seem as out of place as one would think, and actually looked interesting on him. As I continued to regard his appearance, he turned to look at me with raised eyebrows and a haughty grin.

"I have all the rights to be! I FINALLY got you drunk AND made you admit defeat!" Duo's eyes seemed to glow, and he turned around to look through the cabinets. He scowled at what he saw. "We have 54 bags of ramen noodles, but we don't have any normal pasta! What's wrong with us? Heero!"

I glanced up at him from my refrigerator rummaging, "What?"

"We're going shopping." He exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air for emphasis. He looked adorable doing that, and the Hello Kitty pants only made it more so.

I shook my head at him, "You're not going out in those pants."

"Huh? What's wrong with them?" He looked down, snatching the pink fabric and examining the perky cat design.

"They're pink and Sanrio. What more of a reason do you need?" I deadpanned, putting a mild glare in the general direction of his pants.

Letting out a sigh, he huffed out of the kitchen, "Fine, I'll put on something else. But the shirt and beanie stay!"

"Whatever." I called after him, heading towards the door where my sneakers sat waiting patiently for the next time I put them on. I honestly didn't mind the Hello Kitty pants. If they had been any colour other than pink, I wouldn't have asked him to change out of them. However, I'd never had brilliant luck with individuals who were fond of the colour and I had thus formed an aversion to it. Once my shoes where tied, Duo had pranced from his room, his pants now simple black jeans. As he neared the door, he reached down and snatched up his derelict Converse and untied the dog-eared laces.

"So, what should we get?"

"I thought you knew."

"Well, I have an idea. I really wanna make chicken lasagne or something like that, but whatever works, ya know?" Duo rambled as he pulled the sneakers on. Glancing up at me, he flashed a brilliant grin.

I gave him a small smile back, enthralled by how his face lit up and made his eyes look so much more pronounced, "If that's what you want, then I don't have a problem."

"Great!"

The grocery store was crowded, but considering that it was a Sunday, I suppose it wasn't that unusual. Duo dragged me through the store, sending me off towards random aisles in order to retrieve as many of the ingredients for his lasagne as possible in one shot. It didn't take us long, but again there was an incident at the check-out where the cashier got this strange glint in her eyes when she saw us.

We were the only people in line, and as she was ringing the groceries up, she continued to glance at us with that look. Duo noticed also, and just blinked at her. He was leaning on my shoulder, and I assumed that was the reason she was sending us strange looks.

"Is there something on my face?" Duo suddenly asked the cashier, and she stopped what she was doing momentarily to blink at us.

"No." She said simply, going back to trying to get the chicken to ring up.

I examined her name tag, "Well, then, Miss Relena, may I ask why you're giving us such strange looks?"

She looked at us as if she'd been caught doing something horrible, "Oh, uh, I was just thinking what a cute couple you make."

Duo sputtered and then laughed. I stared and then stared some more. It never failed, it seemed.

"We're n-"

"Thanks!" Duo exclaimed, grinning widely at the blonde girl. I snapped around and stared at him. He just shrugged. I suppose denying it wasn't really working, considering that this happened at least twice a week.

As we were leaving, I noticed the girl shot us a purely lecherous look. I had the feeling she watched quite a bit of gay porn in her free time, and was extremely pleased with herself.

Duo's lasagne was wonderful, and we ended sitting on the couch watching Fuse after dinner. He kept shooting me looks and grins.

"What is it, Duo?" I asked, sighing and raising an eyebrow at him.

"Huh? Oh, nothin'." He grinned sheepishly, but his expression remained otherwise the same.

"Bullshit."

He blinked and rubbed the back of his head, "I, uh, was just thinking' 'bout all the times people think we're a couple."

"Oh." I didn't quite know where he was going with this, but I had feeling it wasn't anything negative.

"I mean, would it really be so weird if, you know, we were?" He looked quickly away and I blanched slightly. Of all the possible things he could have said, that was something I hadn't expected.

"What exactly are you saying?"

He looked panicked for a moment, quickly looking away and gulping, "I guess I just… Well, I… I'm just sayin' I'd like it if we were a couple. I mean," my face was blank with shock, and my mind was whirling as he continued, "it's just, I really, really like being around you, and I've kind of been… inlovewithyou since I met you and… Oh, god."

I couldn't breathe and he visibly paled at my silence.

"You probably didn't want to hear that, I mean, why would you want to know that your male roommate is in love with you? Ugh, I'm an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I'm gonna go and shoot myself now. Shit, I completely mess--"

"Shh," Smiling ever-so-slightly, I reached for him across the couch and pressed my mouth to his eagerly, effectively silencing his ramblings as I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer. He reacted almost instantly, clutching at me as he took the reigns and pushed me down onto the cushioned armrest. My hands clung to his braid, my lips burning against his. There was an amazing urgency to our kisses, our touches, as if it was all that mattered. And as far as I was concerned, they were all that mattered. Duo's body pressed against mine, our hands and lips searching… it was the only thing in the world, and I never wanted it to end. His scent radiated around me, and he tasted like ashes and cloves.

- Owari

A/N: And… it's done! Wow! I finished a story and updated two others! That's crazy cool! Muwhahaha! So, now that it's done… I have no excuse not to work on Wise Blood and the last bit of Organic, plus some decent one-shots that are longer than 25 paragraphs! Right on! So how's that for an ending? I think this is actually longer than all the other parts. But I dunno. My computer lacks everything except the second half of chapter 3 because I didn't have the handy laptop when I wrote them, so that's the only part I have access to. Yeah. :sweatdrops:

So thanks to all those that reviewed, and I hope you all enjoyed!

(1) And that was a Life, or Something Like It reference. I love that movie and couldn't resist making Duo and Heero be all scrabble-playing. :happiness: