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The turkey, as they say, had been demolished, and the dishes had even been done. It was down to that slightly over-stuffed part of the whole Thanksgiving holiday that was reserved for… digesting.
‘I am so full,’ Duo moaned, his head lying in Heero’s lap. ‘I’m really not sure I get the point to this whole deal.’
‘It’s about thankfulness and appreciating what you’ve got,’ Heero murmured, fingers idly playing with Duo’s hair, and mind mostly focused on the pros and cons of taking a nap.
‘What?’ Duo chuckled. ‘You appreciate the decadence when you can’t afford to eat for the rest of the week?’
Heero managed to work up a smile for the line. ‘We don’t need to afford anything… we’ll be eating turkey every night until about next Thursday.’
‘Which will teach us to appreciate variety?’
Heero left off playing with his lover’s braid long enough to swat half-heartedly. ‘Show some respect for the holiday; it stems from your culture, after all.’
‘Mine?’ Duo snorted. ‘I’m a product of L2… we don’ know nothin’ about no American holidays.’
‘That’s not what you said when you talked me into this deal,’ he was informed. ‘Exploring the rich cultural traditions of our heritage?’
‘You actually bought that crap?’ Duo grinned, twisting his head to look up fondly at his partner. ‘I thought you knew I just got suckered in by all the TV hype!’
‘Please,’ Heero grumbled, fingers wandering back to look for the lost braid. ‘Allow me to maintain the illusion that we just ate ourselves sick for a higher purpose.’
Duo grinned wider, reaching out a finger in preparation of poking at Heero’s stomach, but paused when his cell phone chimed an incoming text. The finger went off on the mission of finding the phone, stomach poking forgotten.
‘Who’s that?’ Heero asked, deciding that the pros of that nap were piling up a lot faster than the cons. The only question being whether to stay on the couch, or relocate to the bedroom.
There was a pause while Duo punched buttons, his lazy, teasing grin turning to a smirk. ‘Quatre. Seems Trowa finally got over his cold feet and professed his undying love and somewhat obvious devotion. Or… obvious to the rest of us, anyway. They are officially dating, and Quatre is on cloud nine and they’re going to be so lovey-dovey for the next couple of months that we’ll all be sick of them.’
That actually made Heero lift his head from the back of the couch so he could look down at Duo. ‘All that in one text message?’
‘Well,’ Duo confessed. ‘I kinda translated for you.’
‘Translated?’ Heero parroted. ‘And pray tell what was the actual message?’
Duo rolled his eyes, signaling his displeasure at the slight against his translation skills, but lifted the phone back up to eye level, making a point of reading the message word for word. ‘Trowa says he’s thankful for my smile.’
‘And you got ‘undying love and devotion’ out of that?’ Heero queried skeptically.
‘Hey, man… you don’t say crap like that unless you are undyingly in love and sappily devoted.’
Heero dropped his head back into post-stuffing position and had to concede. ‘Ok… point.’
Duo keyed in a reply that he chose not to share, and laid the phone on his belly, anticipating its imminent response. Heero’s lazily questing fingers finally found the lost tuft of hair and began playing with it again. He’d just about made up his mind that staying right where they were was the best option when Duo suddenly shifted. Heero could feel eyes on him.
‘Hey Heero,’ Duo asked, voice thoughtful. ‘What are you thankful for?’
‘What?’ Heero responded, suppressing the smile so as not to encourage the departure from the indolent portion of their holiday.
‘Well, that was kind of… you know… romantic and shit,’ Duo mused, shifting again. Heero looked down to find Duo turned on his side, head still pillowed on Heero’s leg, re-reading his message. He left off twiddling with the tuft of braid and began stroking his fingers along Duo’s temple.
‘That’s easy,’ he said, letting the smile go free. ‘I’m thankful for Stephanie Kwolek.’
The expected moment of silence was followed by Duo turning over again to look up at him, cell phone forgotten and a faint frown of confusion on his face. Heero thought he rather liked that look; Duo was usually the one doing the confusing. ‘Uh… who is Stephanie Kwolek?’
‘A chemist,’ Heero answered promptly, and let his head drop back to savor the confused look in his mind’s eye before it faded into annoyed.
‘Uh… that’s not very romantic, Yuy,’ Duo said, barely managing to keep the pout out of his voice.
‘It’s very romantic,’ Heero assured.
‘Chemist?’ Duo questioned doubtfully, trying very hard not to let himself sound jealous or anything.
‘Yep,’ Heero agreed. ‘Invented Kevlar.’ He lifted his head one more time, looking down into those beautiful eyes, his hand dropping down to rest against a certain spot in the center of Duo’s chest. ‘And I have a very big reason to be thankful to the inventor of Kevlar.’
Something much brighter chased away the confusion and the annoyance. ‘Damn it, Yuy,’ Duo muttered in open affection. ‘Not fair to get that damn romantic when I’m in no shape to do anything about it. If I tried to take you to bed now, I’d probably puke.’
Heero chuckled. ‘Now who’s being romantic?’
Duo grinned. ‘Well, the spirit is willing…’
‘How about we continue exploring cultural heritages and retire to the bedroom for a traditional nap?’ Heero suggested, changing options after all. ‘That’ll put us in a better position to explore something else in a couple of hours when we wake up.’
‘I like the way you think,’ Duo praised, his hand moving to cover the one lying over his heart. ‘There’s just one problem.’
‘What’s that?’ Heero asked obligingly.
‘We have to move…’