Title: Masterpiece
Disclaimer: Not my characters.
Summary: It's Watari's birthday, and this means he gets to play.
Rating: Not worksafe, though mostly implied.
In part for
jtriskell's birthday, in part for Watari's birthday-- belated wishes to both of you.
Thanks:
p_zeitgeist for sharing her expert knowledge of chocolate with me, and
lynndyre for her expert knowledge of Watari.
Written to meet
30_lemons prompt #0 - Holiday
MASTERPIECE
Watari tastes the wine Tatsumi had opened while cooking and smells the rich aroma of tomatoes, oregano and red meat. He doesn't think he'll ever get tired of making out with Tatsumi in Tatsumi's kitchen. True, Tatsumi is almost sitting in the sink, but Watari reasons Tatsumi wouldn't have answered the door in his navy blue apron neatly tied over casual clothes if he hadn't wanted to be ravished.
Birthdays don't have to mean anything when you're dead, but they make a great excuse to make your lover cook you dinner-- among other things.
"I should stop distracting you," he says, pulling back slowly.
Tatsumi's eyes flicker over his shoulder to the oven timer and back to Watari in a single, calculating instant. It makes Watari want to pounce him all over again.
"Your lasagne has thirty-four minutes left. There's even plenty of time for me to help you with your dessert."
He'd asked Tatsumi to buy strawberries and chocolate. Watari had bought the non-edible ingredients for their 'dessert' himself, so as to not spoil the surprise. A surprise, he reminds himself, that Tatsumi is probably deliberately trying to distract him from.
He slips out of Tatsumi's embrace, grinning. "You're so sweet when you pretend to trust me with your kitchen."
Tatsumi frowns, but his eyes show that he doesn't take the tease seriously. "If you told me what you had in mind--"
"You could hull the strawberries for me, if you're sure you've finished making dinner?"
Tatsumi moves to the refrigerator, and very methodically grips the handle without opening the door. "And what will you be doing, Watari?"
Watari slips his backpack off his shoulder, holding it in front of him. He hasn't put it down since he'd arrived. "I'm sure I'll find something to do. It's only-- thirty-two minutes, after all."
---
The meal is excellent. Tatsumi has experience enough with dinner parties and Italian cuisine to no longer attempt anything he hasn't tried many times before. He has experience enough with Watari not to ask about dessert more than two times, despite Watari's pleasure on 'goading' him into both. Impatience has never been one of Tatsumi's sins, not when he knows Watari can never resist bringing his plans to fruition; uncertainty, however... he'd bought an average-sized block of dark chocolate, assuming Watari would be cooking with it, but wanting to hedge his bets by purchasing something that would still be edible out of the wrapper. He wants to know if it is suitable.
After their dinner conversation reaches a suitable lull-- strawberries are currently in season and therefore reasonably cheap, but he doesn't need that confirmed as Watari's reason for asking for them-- he offers to take Watari's plate back into the kitchen.
He takes their plates and cutlery, Watari the salad bowl and their glasses, their thin stems precariously held between the fingers of one hand.
In the kitchen, Tatsumi almost reaches for his apron again, but instead waits while Watari hums tunelessly behind the refrigerator door. He's soon handed the chocolate and strawberries and asked if he minds taking them into his bedroom.
This surprises him enough that he asks without thinking what he should do there.
"You could get undressed," Watari offers suggestively, grinning in the way that never fails to make Tatsumi feel that he's asked the right question to move Watari's little plot a step further along. "I've got a few more things to get ready here, but I'll be there in a minute."
Tatsumi's bedroom shows signs of obvious interference-- the blankets have been entirely removed from the bed, folded neatly and stacked against the wall, his bedside table has been cleared of his water glass and alarm clock, while the sheets have been changed to one of his oldest sets-- but Watari's plan is still mostly a mystery to him.
Tatsumi undoes his shirt, button by button, beginning at his cuffs. He sits down on the edge of the bed to remove his socks-- and stands back up immediately when the sheets crinkle audibly under his weight.
Watari finds him several minutes later, kneeling beside the bed, carefully attempting to examine the coloured sheet plastic layered under the sheets of his bed-- without removing the sheets entirely.
"Plastic sheets, Watari?"
"Shower curtains-- and they were on sale," he says with another of his smug, and yet so reassuring grins.
Watari places Tatsumi's electric steamer, noticeably without a lid, on one of Tatsumi's bedside tables. From his backpack, he takes out three, fairly large paintbrushes and lays them alongside the steamer.
Tatsumi can hear the kettle whistling in the kitchen.
"You didn't think we were just going to eat the chocolate, did you, Tatsumi?"
---
Dark brown really is Tatsumi's colour, Watari thinks, laying on another brush stroke. It goes so perfectly with the tawny undertones of his skin.
Tatsumi is watching him over his shoulder, his head tilted to the side. If Watari moved to a better angle, he'd be able to see that Tatsumi's lips are berry-flushed.
Once he'd gotten an approximate bain marie from Tatsumi's electric steamer and a suitably sized bowl, they'd ended up undressing each other, and Watari had nearly, nearly convinced himself they could afford to take the edge off each other before continuing. But then Tatsumi had looked at him and the mostly melted chocolate, and the plan was too appealing in Watari's mind not to see it realised.
"It's not quite what I expected," Tatsumi admits, reaching for another strawberry. (Watari is lucky Tatsumi eats so politely slow, since he can't reach the bowl from where he's sitting.)
It's not quite what Watari had expected, either. He'd never have been able to lie as still as Tatsumi has managed for so long, though he certainly appreciates Tatsumi's patience. Tatsumi looks so good naked, laid out for Watari's pleasure.
"It's cooler than the wax was," Tatsumi continues, "less stimulating, but more relaxing."
Watari refrains from commenting that there's a reason a candy thermometer is sitting in his 'palette.' He walks around to the other end of the bed, holding his brush so that it won't drip.
Faced with Tatsumi's mouth level with the edge of the bed, part of him very much wants to paint his cock and make Tatsumi suck the chocolate off. Another part, whose voice sounds suspiciously responsible and familiar, points out that Tatsumi will smudge his handiwork if he tries that, though he's welcome to try.
Next time, perhaps. Or later.
And so, he returns to his original inspiration, and kneels, taking hold of Tatsumi's chin. He covers Tatsumi's lips with a thin, quick coat of chocolate and kisses him before any other ideas strike. Having too much imagination would be a problem if he didn't have unlimited time and a very willing test subject.
"Not too relaxing, I hope."
"No," Tatsumi answers. There can't be any berry stain left on his lips after a kiss like that, but his lips are red regardless. His eyes automatically follow Watari's path behind him to the chocolate. "I also assumed from your elaborate set-up that you were planning something messier."
"It'll be messier later," Watari assures him, re-dipping his brush and picking up his mirror. "That's most of the fun."
"Do you plan to lick it off?"
"I am still waiting for my dessert, unlike some people."
They both know he plans to see how well Tatsumi's patience can match his determination tonight.
Only a few more strokes left. This is something Leonardo just missed out on, living when he did, but Watari is sure that if the master had had access to chocolate he would have come up with something similar. It had taken him a while to teach himself to write legibly in mirror-writing-- though the size of his canvas relative to the message he wanted to write certainly helps.
When his design is complete, he tilts the mirror so that Tatsumi can read what he's written across Tatsumi's arse, knowing that he's hit the right angle because Tatsumi's eyes narrow briefly in challenge.
"Watari-san--"
Of course, Watari didn't need a mirror to know what he'd written.
PROPERTY OF
WATARI YUTAKA
"Happy birthday to me," Watari crows and sets down his brush and mirror. "Itadakimasu."*
---
MC
19/04/06
* An expression said prior to eating a meal, means "I will receive."