Itoshigo
He was brushing his hair, facing the mirror, and could see the muscular man coming up behind him. He could see the lascivious look on the other man’s face.
“Not tonight, Gateau,” he said, frowning. He put down the hairbrush and stood up, walking straight past the dumbstruck blonde.
“Wha -? Not tonight? Marron what’s -?”
The other man just continued to frown and dropped his robe, hanging it on a hook by the bed. He got into his side of the bed, pulling the sheets over his half-naked body. Half in a daze, Gateau followed Marron into bed.
Laying his hand on the pale, taut shoulder, he was dismayed to feel it tighten under his touch. Marron turned over, his back to Gateau, and said nothing.
“What’s got you so surly, Marron-chan?” he said, wishing he could figure the man out sometimes. But the beautiful man said nothing. Amazing how well Marron retained his youth and beauty. As Gateau was beginning to fear that he was fading, Marron looked not a day over twenty. “If you don’t tell me what’s the matter, how can I fix it?”
“What makes you think you could?” snapped Marron, not turning over to face him.
Taken aback once again, the blonde was quiet for a moment. “Please, Marron... Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” It amazed him, also, how like a woman Marron could be: Gateau never knew what it was he did to upset his lover. Well, he hardly ever knew.
Marron snorted. “It’s not something you did. Rather something you didn’t do - can’t do.”
“WHAT?” exclaimed Gateau.
A heavy silence filled room as Gateau waited patiently for the other man to expound.
Finally, Marron spoke again, quietly. “Thirty. Thirty, Gateau.”
Oh gods... How like a woman he could get sometimes!
“I turned thirty today. Do you know what that means?”
Attempting humour, he replied, “That you’re still three years younger than me?”
“It means that this spring we’ll have been together thirteen years.”
Oh no... “And...?”
“You know, that’s as long as long as Niisan and Tira have been married.”
“Longer...” mused the warrior sentimentally.
“Yes, longer.” Marron’s voice was not soft, but bitter. What was he getting at? If it wasn’t aging, and it wasn’t some issue about anniversaries... Then what?
He moved his calloused hands from Marron’s shoulder to his lower back, massaging gently. “Marron, I really don’t get where you’re coming from..”
His lover let out a sad, heavy sigh. “Are you really that clueless, Gateau?” Gateau really didn’t know what to say. “You mean to tell me that you don’t feel it?”
“What? Feel what?”
“I suppose so.”
Another lengthy pause followed, while Marron screwed up the courage to say what he was about to say, at the same time, berating himself for his fear. After thirteen years, after all!
“Oh my gods, you want to get married!” Gateau exclaimed before Marron could say anything.
“Wha -? No!” gasped Marron.
“You -?”
“I mean, it’s not what I meant!”
“Well, then, what, dammit!”
“I’m jealous,” he finally spat out.
It seemed as though Marron just wasn’t going to stop surprising him that night. “What? Of who?”
“... Of my brother and Tira.”
“Huhn? Why?” Carrot definitely didn’t have anything on them!
He laughed softly. “You are so naive!”
Gateau’s mouth moved like a gaping fish out of water as he tried to think of something to say in return to that blatant insult.
“Don’t you see... Niisan has children!”
“Oh my gods, Marron!”
He laughed again, more bitterly. “I thought you’d think I was crazy... But I have this... I want a child, Gateau.”
“Marron,” he said, suppressing a laugh rather unsuccessfully, “you have maternal instincts!”
“Don’t laugh, Gateau!” Marron exclaimed, turning over.
Upon seeing his beau's face, Gateau lost whatever mirth he might have had. “I’m sorry, Marron.”
“I don’t really understand it myself. Kami, Gateau, I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life, I’m sure.” He made a hopeless face. “But - What do I have to prove for it? Occasionally an extremely sore ass, an that’s about it.”
Gateau sniggered, knowing that was all too true.
“But I’m serious! Something of my own blood! A child! Not adoption,” he said quickly, cutting off the suggestion in Gateau’s eyes. “It’s just not the same, I’m sorry to say. Besides, I’ve thought about it. They don’t often let couples like us adopt.”
“Couples like us?” asked Gateau, incensed. “How the hell are we any different than anyone else, dammit?”
“We’re not... Not really... But the the narrow-minded outside world, this wouldn’t be a suitable environment to raise children in.”
“Like hell it isn’t!”
“Don’t be angry, Gateau, love. It’s not about that. Really, I want a child that has our mark on them. Not some beautiful orphan, no. Something our own.”
“But, Marron, without a sex change, that’s physically impossible.”
“I know,” he replied forlornly.
Another long pause, this one quite hollow for all their like of ideas.
“What if -! No...” Gateau said, cutting himself off.
“What?”
“It’s stupid.”
Marron laughed a little. “It can’t be any stupider than a sex change.”
Chuckling himself, Gateau said, “Well... I was just thinking... We could find someone who would be willing to bear the child for us.”
“You mean, one of us... inseminate... some random woman...? That seems awful, Gateau.”
“Not some random woman! One of our friends, or something!”
“Well, then, Gateau,” replied Marron in a mockingly cheerful voice, “that leaves the choice between Chocolate and one of your lesbian friends!”
Flustered, Gateau sought for words. “Well, OK, d’you have any better ideas?”
“No, but... Well, who?”
“I’m sure as hell not letting Chocolate have my child!”
“No. I mean, which of us. Which one of us would be the one to...”
After a long, thoughtful pause, they both said, “Well, you -” before stopping and staring at each other in horror. In unison, they both exclaimed “Me?!”
A long moment passed where they stared at each other with a mixture of horror and mirth. Gateau broke the silence, saying, “Well, Marron, you’re the better half of our couple, you know! Handsome, smart. The kid sure wouldn’t get any smart juice from me!”
“How can you - ! Me??” Marron looked absolutely flustered, and slightly disgusted, if Gateau knew him at all. “I’m not even bisexual, Gateau!”
“Oh, don’t do that, Marron!” said Gateau, unable to suppress a laugh.
“Well, you are!”
“But I’m not about to go fuck someone else!”
“Well - Well neither am I!!”
Laughing, Gateau pulled Marron against his chest, where he felt that Marron was also laughing.
“This is ridiculous,” Marron mumbled into Gateau’s skin. “Just... forget about it...”
But Gateau couldn’t just forget about it. What Marron had said touched him, somewhere in his semi-conscious. Something of his own blood. Yes, he knew the feeling. Just like Marron, he had felt it at Carrot and Tira’s house. Sitting on the patio in the red-lit twilight, watching Marron’s nephews crawl all over their Uncle’s lap, Gateau, too, had felt some twinge of jealousy. He’d felt some longing for that. Some wish to be “Father.” He craved the pride he’d seen in Carrot’s eyes as he watched his children. Gateau, too, wanted children. So, long after Marron had fallen asleep against Gateau’s chest, his breathing warm and even against his bare skin, Gateau had stayed awake and thought about the issue his lover had raised.
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