This was the first fan fic I ever wrote and now I have a number of stories under Cerberus, more under Don't Preach and Daniel Lazerus. (I've become a bit addicted.) Anyway, this has been up for a while, but if you happen across it I still appreciate hearing your thoughts...
Sincerely,
Cerberus
Rated: T or PG-13
Contains: mild profanity, mild adult situations
Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or any of its characters
My Side of the Bed
Work Text:Tonight it had been Nowaki's turn to be left home alone. The young doctor had been pulling so many double shifts his supervisor finally ordered him off on a twenty-four hour leave.
Not that he would ever admit it, but Hiroki had been looking forward to the rare full evening with his lover. With his luck, however, of course this was when the drama in his department had to erupt and now he was caught in a damn meeting.
One of the senior professors had been caught having an affair with a high school student whose family was high up in the University's administration. Not his senior faculty, fortunately, and the student in question had been female.
The University had forced the disgraced professor to resign immediately and this emergency faculty meeting called to resolve how to manage the disgraced man's course load. During the discussion, the scandal inevitably started a debate about morality and what sort of behavior was appropriate for the University's esteemed faculty.
Though he was loath to acknowledge it, all this talk about faculty sexual shenanigans stirred Hiroki up, making it difficult for him to keep his thoughts on the discussion and not wandering off to visions of Nowaki waiting for him at their apartment. Perhaps it was the potency of his daydreams, or his "overly sensitive" nature in general, but he thought he caught more than one suspicious glance being cast in his direction during the conversation regarding "appropriate" modes of sexual conduct.
He distracted himself from his growing paranoia by observing, not without some perverse glee, how silent the usually jocular Miyagi was being through all of this.
His pleasure at his senior's discomfort might have seemed unkind, but Hiroki needed to get his amusement where he could: his week had already been brutal enough with midterm grading and student conferences... Now he had to endure this meeting as well and with all the fervor of the "incident," the discussion looked as though it could drag on for hours.
By the time he was finally able to stagger home, Hiroki was so tired he could hardly keep his shaking hands steady enough to get his key in the lock. In fact, he dropped them at least three times before succeeding in finally getting the door open. It didn't help that his fingers were numb. There had been a sudden cold snap, surprising in what had been an otherwise clement early spring, and he did not have any gloves with him.
The damn weather exacerbated his already perpetual state of chill.
Surely, however, Hiroki mused, listening to his teeth chatter, Nowaki will be waiting up with a cup of hot tea and those wonderfully warm eyes.
As he pushed the door open to the apartment, he grunted in disgust at himself.
Kamijou Hiroki, since when did you become such a ridiculous sap?
Still, after slipping out of his shoes and hanging up his things, he was surprised upon entering the main room of their home to find it empty, illuminated by a single dim lamp on one of the end-tables.
Where is that idiot? Hiroki growled, covering his disappointment and suddenly irritated with his overgrown partner.
Nowaki had all day to sleep while I was gone. Couldn't he have at least waited to see me get home before he went back to bed?
Hiroki stamped into the bathroom. He thought he should take a hot shower but he didn't have the energy. Normally he would have forced himself to anyway, he smelled like an ashtray: those senior professors were like chimneys. Especially Miyagi when he was nervous.
Disgusting habit.
Usually he bathed, because though Nowaki would never say it, the scent of cigarettes bothered him. He was a doctor after all and cigarettes carried for him an odor of illness. Hiroki knew too that Nowaki associated smoke with Akhiko and Miyagi: a lingering reminder of the other men in his life.
Secretly it pleased Hiroki to wash the world outside their home off of him before presenting himself to his partner, making himself a blank canvas for Nowaki to mark as his own. Tonight instead of bathing, however, he grabbed his pajamas pants from the hook on back of the bathroom door and proceeded to simply change. Given Nowaki's proclivities, when they did actually get to sleep together, this would normally be an act of futility: his bottoms never managing to stay on very long.
Well, that certainly won't be the case tonight, Hiroki promised himself. Not after Nowaki's been so inconsiderate.
Wrapping his arms around his lean torso, Hiroki debated whether or not to put on his sleep shirt too.
It's fucking freezing.
Wickedly hoping that his chilled body would wake Nowaki up, Hiroki decided to just go to bed. Then his giant would find out, in his perturbed state, just how truly frigid he was feeling.
Walking across the hall, he opened the door to their bedroom. Hiroki stood there, his brow furrowing. With the light cast from the other room falling through the door he could see Nowaki's feet, the long legs barely contained by the length of the futon.
"Hiro-san, is that you?" came a sweet, sleep-rumpled voice. Nowaki reached up and turned on a small bedside lamp.
The scene before Hiroki was too much. He strode to the edge of the bed and stood beside it, towering, for once, over his inky-haired lover.
"Move over, dumb ass! What in the hell are you doing sleeping on my side of the bed?"
These harsh words, however, did not seem to affect Nowaki at all; in fact Hiroki was floored by his boyfriend's response.
"Of course, Hiro-san." Nowaki slid over, holding the blankets up so that his shivering lover could join him. His tired eyes radiated love. "Coming home so late, with the weather as it is, I knew you would be extra cold tonight. So, I wanted to heat your side of the bed for you.
"Please get in before it fades."
As the shame of his behavior and earlier harsh thoughts about his lovely Nowaki surged through him, Hiroki's body had suddenly grown several degrees warmer on its own accord. In fact, his cheeks were now actually quite hot. Slipping into the bed without uttering another word, he turned his back to Nowaki, unable to bear facing him the moment.
The warmth of the spot so recently vacated by Nowaki's body was delicious against his chilled skin. Pulling the soft sheets up around his shoulders, Hiroki tried to hide from his embarrassment. He jumped to feel even more heat as Nowakir tenderly pressed his own naked torso against him from behind.
Wrapping his long arms around Hiroki, Nowaki covered frozen hands with large palms. He drew his long legs up under Hiroki and set cold feet on top of his own warm ones.
Hiroki was beside himself. He knew that if the situation had been reversed, he would have kicked Nowaki out of the bed! Or, at the very least, shouted at him for touching him with frigid body parts. But Nowaki draped a shaggy head over his shoulder and whispered in a voice like hot silk, "Poor Hiro-san, always so cold." Then Nowaki sighed, nestled in, and pulled Hiroki tighter to him.
Always so cold.
Hiroki was scorched by the truth in these words. He was frozen… on every level...
Body, mind, heart.
Suddenly convicted, he felt a single hot tear slip unbidden from the corner of his eye. Hiroki turned his head and gently brushed his lips against his sweet lover's and watched as deep, blue eyes slowly opened in surprise. Within them, sparked by his kiss, he saw Nowaki's desire immediately kindled.
Nowaki, returned the kiss, hesitantly at first and then with mounting passion. For once, Hiroki did not protest, instead he opened himself to the heat of Nowaki's love, allowing himself to be melted completely.
THE END