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It’s hot. Uncomfortably hot and the two of you have taken up refuge in the small apartment you share. You know that it’s a bit ridiculous that you’ve both been cooped up in this little apartment. Between the two of you, you probably make more than enough money to buy an actual housel; but you really don’t feel like you need more than what you’ve got. This arrangement makes it easy to pick up and move wherever you like. That’s how you ended up here in North Carolina—teaching Chemistry in the Fayetteville State University. It’s also how you ended up sprawled on the bare laminate floors of your flat—staving off the heat while you wait for the air conditioning tech to arrive to fix it.
Unlike you, Kanda seems less absolutely distraught by it. His work as a personal trainer probably has something to do with that. He’s always hot, sweating, and putting his body under more stress than you do yours. Sure, you run with him and you both bike together—but he’s into weight lifting and running marathons.
Your biggest workout is balancing checkbooks and mixing chemicals in the science labs. You don’t complain though, you just flip through channels and mourn the loss of interesting television. It amazes you, because the 90s wasn’t nearly this bad—at least you don’t think it was. Reality shows and shitty computer generated cartoons have taken over and none of those really hold your interests for long. You’ve already seen every episode of Dharma and Greg thanks to your partner and you might die if you have to watch reruns of that again.
“It’s 2011 and there’s nothing on TV,” you grunt, rolling on your back and watching the display upside down.
“It’s all on at night. Don’t forget, Breaking Bad’s on tonight.”
“I have it set to record. I’ll be busy doing other things tonight,” you press another button and just watch the menu scroll endlessly until you come upon the music channels. If you can’t watch something, you’ll listen to the 90s radio station until your brain bleeds.
“Oh? You didn’t mention anything. What are you going to be doing?”
“Heh,” your crane your neck to get him in your sight and wink at him, “you.”
He raises a brow at you and puts the paper down. He’s sitting on the floor, using the coffee table like a counter. Between the news paper, assorted snack foods and art supplies, you assume Kanda’s just taken ownership of the table. “And what makes you think I’m going to be in the mood for it?”
“I can predict the future. You’re going to go to take a shower and I’m going to go in there after; touch and feel on you when your back is turned to me. Maybe lick on your neck a bit, then you’re gonna turn around and I’m gonna kiss the hell out of you. Tomorrow, I’m going to have to take the sheets to the cleaners.”
His fingers are tapping against the table and you can read the flickers of desire like they’re bulletin boards. Try as he might, his face cannot deny his need to see your prediction come true. “We’ll see if that happens, beansprout.”
“Oh I know it will. I’ve already foretold it, Kanda,” you close your eyes and lay back to the floor—smiling and pretty pleased with yourself. You know that he’s probably encouraged to attack you now, but he can’t because of the tech that’s supposed to be showing up any time.
He goes back to his paper to try and cool down what you know is heating him up. You’re surprised he didn’t throw something at you for being sly. It’s not like the two of you don’t have a regular schedule of this—really, you probably tangle in the sheets more than most couples. That’s perfectly fine for you and obviously for him. The anticipation is what does him in, though. He’ll get wound up until you pounce on him and have him like putty between your fingers. Of course, you know you’ll have to watch out for when he decides to get back at you.
“When’s this guy supposed to be here?” You throw out, knowing you’ll just be tapping at his buttons—not quite pushing them, but lightly prodding.
“He said some time this afternoon. It’s already two, so I assume soon. I know we need to go get groceries; do you still want to wait until later? Or one of us can go.”
“Nah, I’d rather wait. I’m terrible at shopping without adult supervision.”
“You’re older than me, numb nuts,” he snorts and takes a drink from the cup that’s been teetering on the edge of the table for the better half of an hour. One of these days, he’s going to accidentally drink paint-water and you’re going to laugh until you cry. “Besides, you’re an adult.”
“I’m a child at heart. Besides, you’re supposed to be older. You’ve been through what, all of your nine lives now?” you stick your tongue out while he practices his execution of the middle finger at you.
“I’ll have you know, I was nine when you first nailed me in the last one, filthy knave.”
“Did you just call me a knave? Listen here, you berk, I’m a man of dignity and class. I have a piece of paper that says I’m smart too, top that.” You point at the wall across from you that holds your trophy of completing your Master’s degree in Chemistry.
“You didn’t cock that up, I’m proud of you, but you’re still a knave,” he just chuckles and keeps his nose in the paper.
“You’re being awfully cheeky today, which is strange given that it’s at least 400 degrees in here.”
“In Fahrenheit or Celsius?”
“Kelvin.”
“Oh, then that’s not that bad, right? It could be a lot worse, it could be freezing outside and snowing… and you could have left the window open.”
You toss the remote—missing him entirely, but making the effort nonetheless. “Too soon!”
“Too soon my ass, it’s been over a hundred years. You know, we missed the Titanic sink by just a few years. What a bummer.” You want to pinch him for making light of it. Though, you suppose it’s not really that painful anymore. You do remember a lot of the feelings that crushed you for a while—leaking into the life you live now—but they all seem to have faded in place of the pleasant happiness that’s enclosed you both.
“Didn’t look like that fun of a time anyway. Besides, I’d rather freeze to death on a couch than sinking into the ocean.”
“Do we need to move to somewhere tropical, so I don’t have to worry?”
You introduce your own middle finger to the conversation. “I guess we’re not gonna get a place with a staircase then?”
“You can add sucking my dick to your to-do list tonight, beansprout and try not to choke this time.”
“Oh, I’ll do the best job I can, Kanda. I’ll make sure to lick from the base to the tip. Then swallow you all the way down,” you tease, making an obscene gesture with your hand and tongue against the inside of your cheek. You can see his face flushing even from the weird angle you’re at and you continue making that insinuation of a blow job until he turns the paper up to block you out.
“You’re a divvy and you need to take a vacation in the land of ‘go fuck yourself.’”
“I’ve already told you my prediction of the future. I don’t need to be fucking myself when I have you,” you smirk and roll over on your belly—facing the TV again. You’ve had the soothing waves of 90s music in your ear for a little while and you’re bored enough to try and find something to actually watch again. You know there won’t be much luck, but if worse comes to worse, you can always pull up Netflix and watch more Highlander while Kanda scoffs the historical inaccuracies every time he sees them.
He says nothing, because you think he’s not going to deny that what you say is true. There’s no way he’d let you get away with self soothing if it meant you weren’t going to get sweet on him. You would either way, really; but you don’t tell him that. You just flip through channels again—reaching to the box itself in wake of your remote throwing—and scorn every show about people about people eating bugs and dumb reruns of Cops. Eventually you stop on the TLC channel so you can make fun of women who are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a dress they’ll wear one day then shove in a closet for the rest of their lives. Kanda can’t stand when you let this show sit on your TV for long, but you really enjoy watching him watch it.
His insults are the best and you’d never noticed just how British he can sound. Now that you’re both living in America, the accents you both sometimes slip into really shine against what you’re now used to. You suppose travelling the world has had some affect on you. One day, you both plan to go back to England—maybe not to live, but just for a visit. Kanda’s been through France, but you haven’t. You and your ‘father’ came to America from Iceland—where your father was is native.
You were born in Wales, which is technically part of the United Kingdom, yes, but not quite the England you’re thinking about. Rather, you should say you want to go back and see the home you both died in previously. Maybe that’s a strange desire, but you both share it.
Still, it’s nice to hear the strong, sultry tones from him when he gets going about these stupid shows. He’s always got some comment on how ugly these things really are; or how much of a dumb bitch the women can be about it.
You hear the newspaper crinkle and you expect him to make a comment about you turning this show on again. Some comment about ‘you’re ruining your intelligent mind’ is what you expect, but he just clears his throat and turns the page, leaving a moment of silence before he inhales deeply. He does that when he’s bound to thinking.
“Something wrong?” You ask, looking back and stretching your body to nudge his knee with your sock-covered foot.
Silence is the answer you’ll get for a few moments before he puts the articles flat and leans on his arm—eying you. “I was just reading an interesting thing here.”
“About what? News can’t be interesting?” Your eyes go back to the screen while he talks. You’ll ignore the show’s dialogue, but keep your vision full of hideous dresses—waiting for an opportunity to make a snipe at one. “Also, can you just let me get you a tablet already? The newspaper is so out of date.”
“I like reading from printed material, thank you. But that wasn’t the topic here.” He shakes his head and you can see it in the reflection from the TV. “Actually, I was looking at an interesting thing. News from New York. Apparently, they’ve legalized gay marriage.”
“Oh?” This draws your attention away from the screen long enough to see what his expression is. You can’t see the fine details of his face through the reflective screen of your TV, but you really want to read the details hidden in his passive visage.
“Yeah, I haven’t been paying much attention to the media lately, what with all the celebrity bullshit and commercial of Twilight romanticizing domestic violence. But yeah, it passed a couple days ago.”
He looks contemplative, so you say nothing. Your heart’s beating a little quicker though, given the topic of the moment—amusing you vaguely, given the subject of the show you stopped on. He’s smoothing over the corner of the paper on the table and trying to compose thoughts. There’s a reason he’s brought this up and you already know and it’s making your fingers twitch. You have to sit up to level your gaze with his.
The locked exchange doesn’t break and he folds his hands together in front of him. “Ever been to New York?”
“No,” you reply shortly, because you feel a bit fluttery inside and it’s created an invisible lump in your throat.
“How about a road trip?”
He’s being really slick right now and you slide across the floor until you’re right next to him, nearly leaning against his side. “Might be nice to get out…When do you want…to go?”
“If we leave tonight, we can be there by morning.”
You inch close until he’s moving away from the table in order to tangle his arms with yours. He’s not romantic, but he’s trying to put something big there in a very sly way and you have to admit it’s kind of cute. “We have to wait for the technician,” you mutter and press your face to the side of his.
“He should be here soon anyway.”
“And fill up the car.”
“I did that last night, so it should be fine for a decent stretch.”
“Then it sounds good to me.”
He slacks a bit in his ridged pose and you feel like curling up with him on the floor and just listening to the sound of the TV run in the background. You know that many people would think the two of you are absolutely nuts for having no problems at all spending every waking moment together, but you enjoy it. He enjoys it. Even when you get on each other’s nerves you can find some solace in it. You think it’s a perfectly fair assessment that “til death do you part” more than applies. Quite literally actually.
He, of course, breaks the following silent moment when his eyes hit the TV.
“That dress is really fuckin’ beastly. Makes a pretty gal look like she was beat with the ugly stick.”
“Aw, darn, I was gonna wear that.”
“The hell you are.”