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1x2
I am, perhaps, a bit biased since he is my lover… but I have to say, nobody does righteous indignation quite as well as Duo Maxwell. His door slams are well timed, but not so over-the-top as to actually risk damaging anything, and his language is as colorful as it comes. It’s not something he indulges in all that often, reserving it for moments of extreme injustice, and I’m usually right there with him.
But I have to admit he kind of lost me on this one.
‘I can’t believe that damn Wufei!’ he growled, stomping his way through the entrance of the grocery store and looking like he resented the automatic doors for not letting him slam them.
I trailed along after him and just tried not to sigh.
‘How dare he insinuate I bought that soup!’ he snarled, ripping a cart free from the jumble so loudly, that a bagboy that had been coming down the aisle towards us, turned and went back the way he’d come.
‘But Duo…’ I tried, following him through the floral section as he jerked his cart this way and that.
‘Don’t ‘but’ me, Yuy!’ he cut me off without even glancing back in my direction. ‘I did not buy that damn soup! It was home-made, completely from scratch!’
‘Just not by us…’ I muttered, cringing as he skimmed by a display of canned corn.
‘That’s not the point!’ he railed, taking his hands completely off the cart for the second it took to wave them dramatically.
‘And the point would be?’ I asked, ever his straight man.
‘It was rude!’ he snapped, grabbing hold of the cart again so he could jerk it to a stop, turning to actually address me directly for the first time in ten minutes. ‘It was just rude and… and embarrassing!’
Ah. And embarrassment was something Duo had never handled… all that well.
‘Right there at the damn freaking dinner table, in front of all our friends,’ he informed me, as though I hadn’t been there sitting right next to him.
‘Well, you have to admit we’re not exactly legendary in our cooking skills,’ I soothed. ‘It just… surprised him.’
‘Get real,’ he growled, eyes narrowing as his irritation burned off some of the remembered embarrassment. ‘That was Wufei. That was deliberate.’
‘Duo,’ I tried, ‘all he did was ask for the recipe…’
‘Which he knows damn well I can’t produce!’ he grumped, and then turned back to grab the cart and continue our trek.
‘Well, maybe if you asked Mrs. Mugilicutty, she’d give it to you,’ I suggested as gently as I could. It took him a second to respond, and I thought for a moment he was considering the solution.
But then he just confessed, ‘I already tried.’
‘When?’ I had to ask. We’d just left Wufei and Relena’s place an hour ago.
‘I called her from the car while you were saying goodbye to Relena,’ he said dejectedly. ‘Apparently, it’s an old family recipe and the only way I’m getting it is if I marry her.’
‘Ah,’ was the best I could manage. I imagine Mr. Mugilicutty would have something to say about that. As would I.
We forged through produce in silence for a minute, until Duo pulled up next to the cauliflower display and began loading the cart. He hesitated after five of the things and looked up at me almost imploringly. ‘How many, do you think?’
I sighed, giving in to the inevitable weekend of culinary experimentation. ‘Duo… until Mrs. Mugilicutty gave us that pot to take to the party, I didn’t even know you could make soup out of cauliflower.’
‘Good point,’ he granted, and loaded up another five.
I resisted the urge to sigh heavily, ‘Duo… do we really have to do this?’
The fire was back in his eyes, his ire reigniting. ‘Yes, damn it! It’s a challenge now! No way am I letting Wufei win this!’
‘I’m not sure spending the weekend in the kitchen is exactly ‘winning’, Duo…’
‘It’s the principle of the thing!’ he growled, turning his cart full of pale vegetables toward the spice aisle.
‘And God forbid we compromise our questionable principles,’ I muttered, trailing along behind again.
‘Damn straight,’ he agreed.
I gave in to the sigh, cursed Wufei, and resigned myself to a very long weekend of soup tasting.
Nobody does righteous indignation quite like Duo Maxwell.
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