omnicat | Gift!FIC: Bad Habits [Gundam Wing, Duo x Hilde]

Title: Bad Habits
Author: Omnicat v''v
Rating: PG / T
Genre: Humor
Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge: Just make it the entire series.
Warnings: Discussions of a mature subject that is not sex - and maybe a few stray mentions of sex. :P
Pairings: Duo Maxwell x Hilde Schbeiker
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing isn’t mine, I’m not making any profit by writing this, and so on and so forth.
Summary: Hilde has a habit of leaving her discarded clothing lying around. Duo doesn’t mind. At least, until...
Author’s Note: Gift!fic for cantabrasil03. I... am afraid that this may not be the kind of ‘cute’ you had in mind. If it’s too... well, you’ll see, let me know and I’ll be guilt-tripped into writing something more romantic. XD;;

Bad Habits

Not a shred of military discipline left in you, is there Hilde? Duo thought as he meandered through the house collecting pieces of clothing. Though I suppose you weren’t in it for the lifestyle in the first place.

He whistled, impressed, whenever he came across something in a particularly exotic place, like the top shelf in their little office, wound around the hind leg of the dining room table, or stuck behind a loose skirting board. It was amazing how much she managed to leave lying around in the course of a single week.

Not that he was complaining. It was a ‘rule’ they made a point of speaking of as little as possible: he did the laundry and didn’t complain about Hilde’s littering, and Hilde made all his food and didn’t complain about his sudden and inexplicable absence whenever it was time to do the dishes. Besides, he wasn’t entirely innocent himself. He wouldn’t have bothered checking behind the couch if he didn’t know for a fact that something had ended up there when he’d gotten bored with last night’s movie.

Coming back from the laundry room to hunt for his next armful of dirty clothes, he found Hilde carrying several brown paper bags, nudging the front door closed with her foot.

"Hey babe, how did it go?" He came over and pecked her on the cheek while she kicked off her shoes.

"Great! Come on, give me a real kiss, I deserve it." she said, pulling him closer with her free hand. Duo obliged with a grin. "The job is ours. And the daughter is in the middle of starting a business of her own, so we might have a new client soon. And -" - she rattled her bags - "- I brought snacks. To celebrate."

"That is great." Duo agreed, gleefully peeking into the bags. "Let me finish up upstairs and I’ll join you."

"Okay."

"And leave something for me, will ya?" he said over his shoulder as he bounded up the stairs. He could hear her faux-diabolical cackling all the way to the bathroom.

Once again, his clothes were the only ones actually in the clothes hamper. Sometimes he wondered about the size of Hilde’s wardrobe; there were so many different clothes of hers always lying around, and yet sweaters and leggings were all she seemed to wear. And if they ever tried putting it all away neatly, would there be enough room in the closet? He suspected a closet full of Hilde’s clothing would be much like a hand granade without a pin.

Squinting and pursing his lips against invading dust-bunnies, Duo wormed his way underneath the bed and came back with a pair of panties. He grinned. Here was another reason not to complain.

Just when he was about to chuck it into the hamper, something caught his eye. He yelped, dropped the panties in disgust, and wiped his hand on his pants furiously.

"Goddamnit, Hilde!" he swore. Gingerly he picked it up again, clutching the tiny strip of lace along the top between two fingers. Upon closer inspection, his expression changed. The brown stains were too far to the front to be what he’d initially thought. A muscle started twitching below his left eye.

"HILDE!"

There was a clatter down in the kitchen, and within moments a wide-eyed Hilde came racing up the stairs. "What’s the matter?" she asked, looking around for whatever could have caused such an inhuman roar.

Duo thrust the panties forward, dumping the clothes hamper on the bed so he could point at the offending object with his other hand. "There is blood on your underwear! Why is there blood on your underwear?!"

Hilde frowned. "Blood?"

She took her panties from him; Duo was more than happy to relinquish them.

"Aw, crap. That’s going to be a pain to get out." she muttered.

"Hilde," Duo said shakily. "I found that under the bed."

She looked up at him with an innocent face. "Really? Oops."

"Oops?"

Her cheeks were starting to colour now, but her expression remained so clueless he would have admired it, had the circumstances been any different.

"Yeah, I, er, must have kicked them off the last time I had my period and forgotten they were there. You know how I am in the mornings." She gestured with the panties laughingly.

Duo stared at her in disbelief.

Hilde stared back and laughed some more.

Duo couldn’t quite appreciate her waving the bloody things around like that.

Did she not understand that these were things he did not want to know about? After a lifetime of communal showers (or worse) he was used to it, sure, but appreciating it? Hell no! And either way, he’d shared those communal showers with other men, not girls!

He tried one last time, plaintatively: "Hilde... you got your period and left your dirty underwear lying around."

The facade of nonchalance fell away and Hilde threw her hands up in the air. "It’s just a little blood! Not even scary blood - good blood. It means I’m fertile and that none of the condoms broke lately. What’s the big deal? It’s only natural!"

"What’s the big deal? There’s never been blood on your clothes because of it before, that’s what the big deal is!" Duo countered.

"Oh yes there is." Despite her by now beet-red face, Hilde managed to laugh at him. "Sometimes that just happens. Sometimes it starts at night and when you wake up in the morning the blood’s just there. Or it happens when you’re busy and you don’t notice it. You just never noticed when that happened because I always hide it by immediately throwing everything in the wash."

Duo balked. "Don’t go shoving this on me now!"

"I’m not." She looked at him with unveiled amusement. "I was only trying to spare you. You’re right, though. There’s no need to be offended just because there happens to be more to me being a girl than breasts and multiple orgasms."

Duo’s mouth fell open. Offended? "You’re leaving bloodstained clothes lying around!"

"But somehow I never hear any complaints when I leave my underwear out when I’m not on my period." Hilde said shrewdly.

All the blood that had flooded in Hilde’s cheeks moments before seemed to migrate to Duo’s.

Smirking, she tossed the panties into the hamper lying on its side on the bed. "Don’t worry. I’ll remember to put them in the hamper next time." She looked at him consideringly. "I don’t think I’ll be putting them in a seperate wash anymore if it happens again, though. There’s really no point in wasting so much power and water over this. Wash that one hot, we’ll see what happens. If the stains don’t come out entirely, it’s no big deal."

Duo stared at her all the while, unable to get his mouth to close. Hilde’s smile softened. She kissed his cheek and said "I’m sorry, but you’ll get used to it.", before turning away. "Just hurry it up. Those pies are better when they’re warm."

PSAN: ^^;;