Chapter 14: Questions I & II: Egoist

The Uke Flu

Chapter Fourteen: Questions I and II

Hiroki opened the bedroom door a moment later and stood, scowling in.

He took up his favorite posture: leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed defensively over his bare chest.

Dressed, or more accurately, half-dressed as he was with his holey jeans and naked torso, to Nowaki, Hiro-san appeared more like a petulant teenager than a thirty-year-old man. As upset as he had been with him just minutes before, Nowaki couldn't help but think Hiro-san looked really cute. He turned back towards the closet, trying to hide the goofy smile that had crept onto his mouth.

Hiroki looked at his lanky partner standing across the room from him and frowned. Even with his clothes rumpled from lying down, his black hair mussed and looking a little like some insane Rorschach ink-blot, Nowaki was just so fucking handsome it irked him.

Observing the open bag on the bed, Hiroki's scowl deepened. "Kusama, that better be your 'overnight emergency/I'm going into labor' bag you're packing, even if it does seem a bit early for you to be doing this."

Nowaki turned and looked at Hiroki with surprise. "No, Hiro-san… I thought… Given how you felt about children… How you might be feeling about me, that you probably needed some time alone to think about things."

Hiroki moved into the room and picked the bag up off the bed. He started to lift the satchel back up to its original place on the closet shelf.

"Nowaki, if you think I'm letting you out of this house in your condition, you have another thing coming." Hiroki looked back over his shoulder at the younger man. His hazel eyes were fierce, challenging Nowaki to disagree.

Nowaki noticed Hiro-san could not quite reach the shelf. He stepped up behind him and took the bag from his outstretched hands. "What do you mean, Hiro-san? You think you can keep me from going? I'm a grown man. I can do what I want." Nowaki had a smile on his face, however, and his tone was teasing as he said this. At the same time he was speaking, he easily reached over Hiroki and slid the bag back up on its shelf.

As soon as the bag left his grasp, Nowaki was surprised to feel Hiro-san step back into him.

Hiroki pushed his back against Nowaki's chest and at the same time grabbed his long arms and wrapping them around him. "More like you're an over-grown man," he growled as he walked Nowaki over to the bed and pulled both of them down onto it.

For some reason, Nowaki felt extremely grateful that Hiro-san had pulled his arms around him and that the older man had not tried to embrace him instead. It reassured him that things had not changed entirely: this was how it had most often been and how it should be still.

The two lay there in silence. Hiroki pulled Nowaki's arms around him more tightly.

Nowaki nestled his chin over Hiroki's wild head.

"Wa-kun?"

Nowaki was startled. Hiro-san never used that nickname for him unless he was feeling particularly contrite about something. "Yes, Hiro-san?"

"I'm sorry."

"I know, Hiro-san. Me too."

Hiroki stroked the back of Nowaki's hands absently. "Eight weeks. Huh?"

"Yes," Nowaki sighed, lulled by the gentle touch.

"You might have to get a new suit then… You probably won't fit into any of the ones you have by the time we have our ceremony," Hiroki ventured.

The stress of telling Hiro-san about the baby and all the emotion of the day had exhausted Nowaki. Knowing that he was safe at the moment and that he didn't have to leave his home, Nowaki was overcome with a sudden heavy sleepiness.

"Mmmm. I suppose, Hiro-san, or maybe we could postpone it."

"I don't know about that." Hiroki sounded concerned. "How do you feel about being an unwed father?"

"I don't care as long as I know you love me, Hiro-san." Nowaki's voice revealed the truth of his statement.

"Dumb ass," Hiroki growled, returning his own truth, "You know that I do!"

"So, you're not mad at me, Hiro-san?" Nowaki's tone was tentative as he asked his.

"Mad, Nowaki? No. Shocked, definitely," Hiroki answered truthfully. "I mean, this whole thing will take some time for me to get used to."

"Yeah, me too," Nowaki confided.

"I can't even begin to imagine."

Before he was overcome with some embarrassing emotion, Hiroki added, "Besides, this will be our brat, not someone else's and as long as I'm not the one who has to carry it…

"I was already kind of warming up to the idea of getting you a puppy anyways, Nowaki. I mean how much different can it really be?"

Nowaki shifted his head down and nuzzled the back of Hiroki's neck. "You really are an ass, Kamijou, you know that?"

Hiroki could feel Nowaki's happy grin against his skin. "Yeah, Wa-kun, I know."

The two men lay there in comfortable peace for a bit. Nowaki, now at peace, drifted in and out of sleep, until he felt Hiroki extricate himself from between his arms. Hiroki then maneuvered him, so that Nowaki found himself lying on his back.

Nowaki watched curiously as Hiro-san pushed his shirt up. He arched his back slightly to assist him in this.

Then Hiroki repositioned himself on the futon. He lay his head down on Nowaki's toned stomach, closed his eyes, and rested there.

To Nowaki, from where he lay, it looked as if Hiro-san was listening for something. Hiro-san's soft hair and cool bare skin felt delicious against his own heated flesh.

Hiroki's slender fingers traced feathery trails up the center of Nowaki's torso. He drew languid circles around taut pectorals, pulling a string of soft sighs from Nowaki. Then Hiroki lifted his head and laid a ring of gentle kisses around his lover's flat belly.

After doing this he returned his head to its previous resting place, and looked up.

Hazel eyes met and married blue.

The two men regarded each other solemnly. In the quiet warmth of the spring afternoon a new agreement had been reached between them.

"First question…" Hiroki offered Nowaki a rare smile. "Which one of us gets to tell my mother?"

"Second question," Nowaki responded, giving Hiroki a smile of his own, though one that had a different slant than his usual grin. "Do we call her before or after the make-up sex?"

New AN: Sorry for no individual Shout Outs these last few chapters. I'll catch up on those next chapter. Promise!

Old AN: So as you can tell, I had a little time on my hands this weekend. That's why you get so many chapters at once.

I could have held back, but... sometimes I lack restraint...

I wanted to keep being mean to the boys but those of you who have read my other work will know by now that as much as I want to be cruel, I just can't maintain it.

Someone once told me a cynic was just a disappointed romantic. Yep that's me and every once in a while that romanticism just slips out unbidden.

Anyway, let me know how you like it and I will continue to ramble on from here.

Sincerely,

Cerberus