Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 Who: Duncan and Adora Where: Adora's Apartment When: Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 What: Duncan and Adora have some relaxed conversation
"Haaa..." Adora sighed as she moved from being on top of Duncan to flopping down beside him on her bed, panting quite happily, covered in sweat and flushed quite nicely. Oh, she felt good. She felt better than good. She felt... satisfied and was still shivering and feeling a little weak at the knees. She had needed that. After a whole week of waiting for another chance to be with Duncan, it had certainly been worth it. It had certainly paid off, and now she was full and happy and had even gotten some new sounds out of him that time.
"That was good." Adora purred, simply staring at the ceiling as she took the chance to recuperate. "I got new noises out of you this time," She remarked with a smug expression, chuckling. "I... win."
Reaching up to run a hand through her hair, it was nice to just relax and not feel like she was going to crawl out of her skin. She could sit like this all day. Not that she would, but she could. "Thank you for coming to the rescue."
____
He twisted around to lay on his side, watching her with a slap-happy, crooked grin, his face still a little flushed. "You win?" he asked, propped himself up on one elbow. "You win what."
____
Adora chuckled, shrugging and looking up and over at him with that same 'cat has gotten the cream' satisfied expression. "I just win. I am happy, I'm full, and I have one of the best conversation companions laying next to me. All around? A good day to be me." Adora sighed with a smile, then settled back on her pillow more, basking in the afterglow for the moment.
____
It felt really, really great to see that smile. He hadn't seen that smile in a very long time. Despite the opening doors and apologies for bad language, Duncan was not a fairy-tale gentleman. He wanted sex, he needed sex, and he liked sex.
He also loved helping friends and making other feel good. This arrangement -- was it an arrangement? Not really -- with Adora was fantastic on all of those points. He sat up, sheet still covering him for modesty, and stretched out his arms. Duncan was wiry, Adora had been right. What he lacked in mass he made up for in sinew; veins and muscles stretched against his pale, slightly freckled shoulders and forearms. He stretched hard, until his back popped, and then let out a satisfied grunt before mussing with his hair. It had become bedridden, and as a result one small horn was poking up through auburn tufts. He was attempting to hide it again.
"And now? Breakfast?"
____
Adora could see the horn, and if she'd had a choice in the matter, she would have told him to just leave his hair that way. The disheveled look was pretty damn nice on him. While Duncan may have been stretching and getting ready to get back up, Adora made no immediate move to get out of bed.
"Well, I just had a pretty big meal, so I'm stuffed." She purred, rolling onto her side to look over at him more. "But, I have been told I make very good french toast."
____
He looked over at her curiously, smiling softly, rumply, like the rest of him. "Are you really full though? You have no taste for food?" Duncan was always hungry after sex, unless he was about to pass out. Even then, if pressed, he could probably do with some ice cream...
"You don't have to make me breakfast," he said, pulling back the sheets to grab his boxers. If she wasn't going to eat, she didn't need her to just make his food.
___
Adora sat up some, running her hands through her hair to make it a little more disheveled in a fashion that didn't look completely crazy. Once it was fixed a little more, Adora reached over to the floor beside her side of the bed, grabbing her tank top and yanking it back on. "No, I actually could eat. I haven't eaten breakfast, so that doesn't help a grumbling stomach."
Stretching a little herself, Adora sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "It's not like I'm going to be getting all domestic on you, Duncan. I am still perfectly capable of knocking you out on your butt outside in your boxers, right?"
____
"Shut up," was all he said to her, smiling, as he grabbed his pants off the floor. Adora might not have known Duncan too well, so there was a chance she didn't realize just how big a deal such a tease was. He was comfortable enough to tell her to shut her mouth teasingly. She could take it as a compliment if she wished.
Shirtless, rubbing at the back of his neck, he made his way into the kitchen. Coffee sounded great, right about now.
"I only meant," he said, his voice louder now that he was in her kitchenette, "that if you weren't eating, I'd get my own breakfast. Nyah." Cabinets banged. "But I don' know where anything is, so get your ass in here."
___
Adora was fond of telling her friends to shut up as well, especially if she didn't have a snappy comeback, so for her, hearing Duncan tell her that just made her grin smugly at him as he went to the kitchen, confident she had somehow won that particular argument.
She stood and looked for her pants and a pair of panties, getting dressed just as Duncan started snarking at her again. Adora laughed and walked in the kitchen, seeing him rummage through her kitchen. "My ass is in here. What are you looking for?" Adora smiled, then passed him to grab the coffee and set the coffee pot on.
____
"Foood, any kind of food. Bloody starving." As she passed him, he pinched her rear, then pretended like nothing had happened. He nonchalantly opened her fridge, because obviously, someone else must have done that.
Silly, yes, but he was in a good mood -- understandably. He doubted anyone would blame him for being a little facetious.
___
"Aaaah, okay, clearly, you're wasting away to nothi -EE!" Adora was going to finish her sentence, but stopped mid-word and let out a shocked squeak as he pinched her butt, jumping and looking back at him, only to see him acting like the wind had magically done it. "Oh, don't act so innocent, I know that was you," Adora giggled and waggled a finger at him, then grabbed a loaf of bread from the counter.
"I am going to make french toast, then. Grab the eggs on the door and some milk." Adora promptly ordered Duncan as she grabbed the spices she'd need for it.
____
"What are those for?" he asked, playing stupid. Duncan had learned a thing or two about cooking, but, again, he was feeling silly. He gently placed the eggs and milk on the counter beside her, looking in confused awe at the spices and other items she was grabbing.
"What are you making? I thought French Toast was eggs, bread, and butter...." he lied, eyebrows furrowing.
____
"If you - " Adora bumped Duncan with her hip, trying to get him to move out of the way so he wouldn't pester her while she grabbed a bowl and started cracking eggs. "Think I'm going to tell you what I put into my french toast, you're sadly mistaken. The one thing I have learned from every chef I have ever bedded is that you do not share recipes." Adora cracked a couple of eggs a bowl, then added some milk and started to whisk them with a wire whisk she kept in her little utensil cup near the stove. "Just trust me, I wouldn't feed you anything I wouldn't eat." As Adora grabbed the first spice, nutmeg, she paused and looked over at him. "You're not allergic to anything, are you?"
____
"Paisley print," he replied, with a stupid smile, before loading an empty mug with sugar and vanilla creamer.
____
Adora simply rolled her eyes at him and pushed him away again so she could go about making her egg wash for the french toast. Humming a tune to herself without even realizing it, Adora went about grabbing a frying pan and heating it up while she sat there dredging bread in egg before sticking it onto a hot pan.
"That will, thankfully, not take very long." Adora said, turning to look back at Duncan and grab a cup of coffee as soon as the pot was done.
_____
Knowing full well the risk, Duncan leaned in and sniffed. "I vote more butter. Mmmm.."
____
Adora laughed and reached up, playfully shoving Duncan away from the stove. "Shoo! Pest! Shoo! Get your coffee for your creamer! Or you eat nothing!"
___
He laughed softly and reached for the pot to pour himself the caffeinated ambrosia. In jeans, shirtless, with steaming coffee, he thought about how he looked like a Folgers commercial. The idea made him smirk in amusement, and he leaned against the counter -- slightly further away -- so he wouldn't pester her.
"What else can we do," he said, after only a moment or three of standing still -- he was so bad at keeping in one place -- and put his coffee down. After another quick ransack of her fridge he began pulling fresh fruit out, then reached for a plate.
___
"I don't know what you can do other than stay out of my way while I cook, otherwise you will find a piece of french toast splattered onto your head." Adora smirked, then looked back at him, holding her fingers up to poke through her hair like his horns would. "Like... french toast-kabob or something." It was mean, but hey, she was actually joking, and normally, if Adora was joking about a feature, it's because it was a feature she liked.
"You're so wiry, where would you even put the food?" Adora teased before flipping the french toast in her pan again.
___
He didn't like it, but he knew better than to show it. It wasn't that he thought she was being malicious. He was just sensitive, and he didn't like that, either. So instead he glossed over it, instead searching for a knife to slice up the fruit, and smirked.
"High metabolism. Everything burns through."
Chop, slice, chop. "More apple, or more strawberry, or?"
___
Adora had totally not even looked at what he was slicing, so it wasn't until he started asking that she actually looked. "What?" She muttered as she glanced over at him. "Oh! Uh, more strawberry. I am a strawberry person to the highest degree." Adora turned back to her pan, then grabbed a plate so she could slide the first two pieces of french toast off onto a plate, then dipped and added another two pieces to the pan.
____
"I didn't take you for a chef, or even a frying-pan user," he said, not looking up from what he was doing. "You give off a 'micro-wave only, I've got better things to do' vibe." He looked over at her with a smirk, knife pausing.
"Obviously I was wrong."
___
"Well," Adora chuckled, pointing the spatula in her hand at him, before focusing on her french toast again. "If they had already had microwaves when I was in my 20s, maybe, but because they didn't, I kind of survived on learning a few things here and there. And then I met a few chefs, especially in France, and they kind of gave me a few reasons to want to learn how to cook." Stopping and grabbing her mug, filling it with more coffee and sugar, she took a sip before she kept talking. "That whole 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach' thing? Yeah, it tends to work for a guy's libido, too, so I learned that lesson real quick."
___
"No need to argue the connection with me, darlin," he said, taking a sip. "I'm starving now. I'm ready to drink the egg wash, Stallone style."
___
Adora chuckled, then after a moment of manuveuring, was able to plop the other two pieces of french toast onto a plate, then turned and handed that same plate to him. "No need. Dig in, I'm gonna finish cooking the rest of them before the stuff I've already cooked gets cold."
___
"I'll heat it up," he said, with a delicate frown, "I can wait." It would be rude to start eating without her!
___
Adora rose an eyebrow at him, giving him a look she normally saved for annoying students. "What part of what I just said sounded like a question and/ or an optional suggestion." Adora jabbed the plate at him again. "Sit down, this will only take a few more minutes." She chuckled. "Go away kid, ya bother me," She smirked in a horribly bad Looney Tunes impression.
___
"W. C. Fields. Is this what we've come to?" he said, taking a seat at the nearest table with a fork, a heaping of strawberries, and his coffee.
___
"Yeah, well, it's that or you weren't going to eat." Adora flipped the french toast in her pan, then glanced up over the little bar to look at Duncan. "Lemme know what you think, but if you say they suck, I will kick you out in the cold. Topless. Because I'm cruel. I'm cruel and I'm heartless," Adora laughed as she took another sip of coffee.
___
"I need syrup, or whipped cream." He slid his eyes sideways and inclined his head with the most evil grin his gentle features could muster. "Do you.. have any whipped cream?"
___
Adora chuckled, then walked over to her cabinet and pulled out a bottle of syrup, walking over and handing it to him. "You're hilarious. But, no, I don't have whipped cream. I didn't think I'd need it just yet." Adora turned and rushed back to the last of the french toast, flipping that onto an extra plate and coming back to the table with her own plate of french toast and the plate with extras. "OK. Awesome."
___
"Thank you very much," he said, smiling, before stuffing his face. Immediately after his mouth was full, he thought of something to say, and so for the next couple seconds he looked annoyed, chewing voraciously. After swallowing with a relieved hand placing itself on the table, he half-chuckled, and said, "Did Hope get back to you at all? I know it's been just a few hours. I'm just very excited."
____
Adora took a bite of her own food, then kind of just watched as Duncan had this massive battle with the bite of food in his mouth. She realized she'd forgotten her damn coffee, so while he was asking her, Adora sprang up and grabbed her coffee, then took a seat again beside him. "Not that I know of. I sent her an email very late last night, though, so it's entirely possible she's just not checking because it's Sunday and it's a day off for her, too." She shrugged, smiling and taking another bite of french toast. "I'm sure it'll be fine, though."
____
He nodded, still smiling. "It was late. What were you doing up so late?"
____
"I couldn't sleep," Adora sighed, making short work of her first piece of french toast. "I did eventually pass out around 1 or 2, but I was wired for some reason. I think maybe seeing Nox was kind of just enough to make me wired for the rest of the evening. Not that it was a bad visit, just a bit awkward and tense until we started watching the movie."
____
"Mmm. Sometimes pregnancy causes insomnia, too," he suggested, hoping not to offend. Adora had probably researched everything already anyway. She didn't need people giving her tidbits. That would probably annoy her.
____
"Ooooh, I'm sure that's part of it," Adora groaned a little, looking down at her stomach and holding her shirt up, as if she was giving the child inside a good stare-down. "Look. Let your mom sleep. Or we will have issues in the future." Sighing, Adora dropped her shirt and shook her head. "It's bad enough I'll have to go shopping for new pants this week."
___
Duncan grinned a little wider. "Oh stop, you look great. Very.. feminine. I don't like this new harsh-angles trend, anyway, with women." He sopped up some syrup, then stabbed a few berries.
____
Adora chuckled. "Ha, well, thank you for the compliment, but, I see it as watching my nice flat stomach disappear forever. I don't know many who would go for a woman with quite so much flab." She shrugged and grabbed a piece of apple to bite into it, then smiled. "Then again, I guess that's why I'm lucky to have you around. You don't seem to mind, so that's all I have to worry about at the moment. Anyone else can just deal."
____
"That's right," he said, having forgotten, "you don't require multiple food sources. Legend seems to imply you all do."
____
"Yes, apparently. I'm currently testing the theory with you, but I'm fairly certain that if I can't just sleep with one guy, we'll know pretty quick." It was something she hadn't forgotten, though. It was constantly on her mind, making her wonder whether or not this was going to work out in the end. "Nox seemed pretty sure that he knew better than me on this one, but then again, he... does that often." She chuckled, stabbing at a strawberry with her fork.
___
Duncan swallowed and licked at his lips. "So Nox asserts you need to feed off multiple men in order to keep from starving, in the supernatural sense."
___
"Oh, nonono." Adora shook her head and took another bite of food. "He's the one who seems convinced that I only have to sleep with one person and can continue to do so indefinitely. In fact, I believe his exact words were 'Don't use your genetics as an excuse for infidelity.'" She frowned, feeling the weight of what he'd said sort of settle in the pit of her stomach. "Funny how he calls me his friend and then throws stuff like that at me when I'm not looking."
___
"His intentions are what affix the label 'Friend,' perhaps not his intonation or word choice." He sipped at his coffee, then rubbed at the ring his mug had left with his fingers until it disappeared. After grabbing a napkin to use as a makeshift coaster, he looked up at her again.
"So.. I'm the first you're testing this theory out on?" he asked, eyebrows raising. Interesting. "That's pretty ... huh, not sure." He chuckled and licked syrup off the side of his thumb. "But you said last week that you are certain you can stay with one man, that you can be monogamous. You mean you just thought, and now, I'm your guinea pig?" One eyebrow lifted higher than the other.
___
Adora reached up and scratched the back of her neck, trying to think of the best way to answer him. There was probably no really good way to say it, but she'd have to try nonetheless.
"I've sort of tried before. I was willing to try for Blake, and it was working up until everything exploded in a fiery mess. I..." Adora cleared her throat, letting out a deep breath and letting her eyes drop from his face to her french toast instead. "I figured trying it with a friend I'm not attached to would be smarter than getting into another fast and furious relationship and completely fucking the whole thing up. I'll know in about a month, because that is the longest I've heard of a succubus staying with the same partner. It's normally the whole 'you have a month, then you will start to shrivel and die' superstition."
___
Duncan took this information in, whilst chewing, before nodding. "Yes, no, precisely what I was thinking. Smart of you. I mean, you could have told me there was an additional angle on your part, but I understand why you might think I'd be disconcerted."
He bit into a slice of apple. "I'm not, incidentally, I just understand the obvious reluctance on your part. I hope it really is just superstition. I'd be a little honored to be your sexual stepping stone. In this case, anyway." He grinned cheekily.
___
Adora let out a chuckle in spite of herself, and she let the breath she'd been holding out while she was at it. "Okay, good. That's great, seeing as how I am hoping that this works and that I don't have to start trolling around. I mean, don't get me wrong, you're a great guy and from our conversations, I am sure you will be a fantastic boyfriend for someone, but, please." Adora held a hand up. "I hardly know you. At least if it messes up, I know I'm not hurting you. Y'know, emotionally."
___
He finished up the last of what was on his plate, and almost spoke before swallowing. "What could mess up?"
Then he laughed. "Don't answer that. Usually this ...sort of arrangement messes up for me, as well. But then, it's never been with a woman your age, before. No offense. And besides.. I make a terrible boyfriend, much better at being the cute friend."