Distance

By Elmina

If there was one thing Tatsuya would have liked to change about his new job, it was travel times. Trains he could tolerate, but the other common traveling option they often had to go for was not so comfortable. Being stuck sitting in a car was rather tiring, and he couldn't move much either.

At least he had no complaints about the company. A car ride meant he could be alone with Allan, never mind the fact that they hadn't even talked much for the last near half an hour of the current trip. It was fine; just the other man sitting next to him was enough. He could always look at the scenery or think about something. It was all for gunpla in the end.

Allan was driving as always when they had to take a car to go anywhere. His eyes were mostly locked on the road, but he occasionally glanced to the side to check on his companion. Tatsuya smiled to himself, his gaze wandering on the trees of the roadside. A little glance on the rear-view mirror reminded him of the reason why they were stuck in a car this particular time, but on the other hand it also reminded him that this was all worth it. Taking a train with all the gunpla the car was loaded with was simply not an option.

The gunpla they had with them - four suitcases and two boxes, one of which was the rather sizable new re-print of the 1/144 Neo Zeong - were the usual samples of upcoming products, completed models and such. This weekend's job was not much different from the usual; simply a couple of workshops in a hobby store. Unfortunately, getting to this particular city involved the 'sit hours in a car' part, and Tatsuya was bored. It didn't help that the GPS showing the current route told him there were near two hours of the trip left.

"You could watch an anime episode," Allan suggested out of nowhere, and Tatsuya looked at him, a little amused. Apparently, his boredom showed.

"Maybe later," he replied. "We could take a break at some point though. My legs are getting stiff."

Allan gave him a bit of a look. "You could have said something ten minutes ago when we passed a gas station, you know," he pointed out with a sigh.

"Sorry," Tatsuya said with an apologetic smile. "But it's fine. Let's just keep going, I bet there'll be another chance soon enough."

"Are you tired?" Allan inquired. He gave Tatsuya another sideways glance before concentrating on the road again. The highway they were on wasn't too traffic-heavy currently and there wasn't much to see aside from the mountains, trees and occasional cars passing by. "Maybe you should try taking a nap," the man added after a moment of not getting any kind of reply.

Tatsuya shook his head. "It's just all this sitting. It makes me weary."

"We can take a break when the opportunity arises," the other man said. "We still have..." Allan's eyes wandered over to the GPS. "...Hmm. An hour and forty-five minutes to go, at the current speed." He smiled. "But hey, you'll get to stand plenty this afternoon, with that gunpla demonstration you're having and everything."

Tatsuya smiled back at his partner. "That's true." He was about to comment something else related to work when there was a sudden loud sound from the right side of the car, and he literally jumped in his seat, startled by it. "What the...?" He mumbled and turned to look at Allan - who was now frowning, gritting his teeth and trying to get a better hold of the steering wheel. There was a strange humping noise coming from Allan's side of the car, and although Tatsuya didn't really understand what had happened, it dawned to him that there was only one explanation: one of the car tires had gone flat.

"Damn it," Allan cursed, confirming his thoughts. "We're got a flat tire, in the front on my side of the car. We can keep going for now, but the steering is affected by it. Check the GPS and try to see if there's any place where we can stop. We can't exactly stop on the highway."

"Right." Tatsuya leaned closer to the GPS to see their current location. No gas stations or any other kind of places where they could stop in sight, but there was a sign for something on the left a little bit further away. A side road that led to a village in the mountains? "There's a road on the left, about three kilometers from here," he told Allan. "That's better than stopping here, isn't it?"

"That'll do," Allan said with a slight nod. He glanced at Tatsuya with a nervous smile on his face. "Well, look at it this way, you can take a break from sitting in the car now."

Tatsuya didn't appear all too impressed. "Definitely not the kind of break I wanted," he said, eyeing his partner. Allan was seemingly very uncomfortable with the situation, and while he was focused on the road, he looked tense. "It's only a little bit further," Tatsuya assured him, trying to keep his own head cool. This was just a minor setback, and besides, they weren't in any kind of hurry. There was surely more than one way to proceed once they could stop the car.

He wished he could have said something else to calm the other man down. He glanced at the GPS and tried to calculate how much longer it would take them to reach the side road. Only a few minutes at their current speed, though their speed was slowly dropping. Tatsuya figured that was on purpose, and Allan was simply letting the car slow down for better maneuverability.

The next few minutes felt like eternity, and Allan's anxiety was almost starting to get to him too. Tatsuya was quite glad to see a sign coming up ahead of them. "See that?" He pointed it out, though Allan had probably already noticed it. "There's the road we want."

"Finally," Allan muttered, slowing the car down further and signaling for the turn, not that there were any other cars in sight. He took the turn and let the car move ahead for another few hundred meters until it came to a stop on its own, and he parked it on the side of the road. "Phew. That was certainly not the kind of excitement I'm into," Allan said, relaxing in his seat.

Tatsuya unfastened his seat belt and relaxed as well. He was very tempted to ask Allan just what kind of excitement he was into, but it wasn't like he didn't know several answers, and most of them involved Gundam in one way or the other. Asking silly questions at this point in an attempt to lighten the mood was rather useless, he decided. "What do we do now?" He asked after a short moment passed. "We obviously can't continue like this."

"We have a couple of options," Allan said, looking at the surroundings. He then got out of the car and went to study the tire. "Not a pretty sight," he commented to Tatsuya, who followed his example and circled around the car to where his partner was. "We're lucky I managed to drive this far with it. It has to be changed."

"Hmm." Tatsuya looked at the road ahead. He could see the village the road led to up on the mountains. "We could walk to the village to ask for help, maybe?"

Allan smiled. "That's near ten kilometers from here," he pointed out, nodding towards a road sign that was a bit further away from their current location. He then stripped his jacket off and tossed it inside the car. "You want to walk in this weather?"

There was nothing wrong with the weather, and Tatsuya was about to comment on it when he realized what Allan meant - it was clear and sunny, definitely, and rather hot and humid. It had been nice and cool inside the car with the air-conditioning on, but out here, not so much. He shook his head as a reply, and Allan nodded. "I thought so," the man said. "Besides, knowing you..." He trailed off for a moment then winked. "You wouldn't want to leave all the gunpla alone here, would you?"

Tatsuya chuckled at the comment, and Allan just grinned. Just when Tatsuya was about to remark something on the matter, Allan waved his hand towards the back seat of the car with an unusually gentle look on his face. "Poor gunpla, how could we ever abandon you?" He stated in a melodramatic tone of voice, and Tatsuya nearly choked on laughter. His earlier worries about trying to lighten the mood were gone, at least.

"You're right," he admitted after he managed to compose himself. "I guess that option is out. The same goes for that gas station we passed earlier, that's even further away." He looked around then at Allan again. "Any other options? Are there... car-fixing services or such we could call?"

"You don't know much about cars, do you?" Allan replied with a question.

Tatsuya shook his head as a reply. "We have a driver back home, so not really," he admitted. "And I think they just take the car to a repair shop to get fixed if there's a problem." He sighed. "I'm not being helpful here, am I?"

"Well," Allan said. "I did say we have options. We can technically call a service, but..." He shrugged with a sigh. "Considering where we are, any of the cities they operate from are at least an hour's trip away from here. We'd be stuck waiting here until they show up, and this is assuming they can arrange something right away."

They had not been in a hurry to start with and had over four hours before they were expected to be anywhere, but Tatsuya took a glance at his phone, pondering on the matter. They had actually planned on checking in at the hotel before the first workshop, which was in the afternoon today, and he wondered if they should skip that now that they were delayed. "An hour?"

"An hour minimum," Allan confirmed. "I'd say anything between an hour and two hours. They come here and change the tire, we get back on the road and... Ugh, what time is it?"

Tatsuya held up the phone. "I was just looking into that. No worries, even if we were to be stuck here for two hours. That would mean we'd have to go straight to the hobby shop though, and wouldn't have much time for preparations. I should probably call them and let them know."

Allan moved behind the car. "Well, we could always..." He trailed off, and Tatsuya moved closer and watched him open the trunk and take their bags out. Allan picked up a tool case from the side of the trunk then moved a cover out of the way and dragged out a large round object. "As I was saying," he continued. "There's always this." Allan set the heavy object down on the ground. He turned back to the car trunk and picked up something made out of metal from the same place the tool case had been in.

"What's all this?" Tatsuya asked, somehow feeling the question was unbelievably dumb.

"This?" Allan knelt down, removed some straps from whatever was covering the large object and drew the cover off of it, revealing a car tire. "It's a bunch of tools and a spare tire, obviously."

Tatsuya gave him a sheepish grin. "Oh. Of course." He studied the tools for a moment then tilted his head. "I take it you know how to do this, then?"

"Not really," Allan replied with a confident smile on his face, and Tatsuya stared at him, dumbfounded. "I do know the basics, so I'm not totally clueless here. And we can look it up. Besides..." Allan sounded thoughtful but then nodded, determined look on his face. "I'm a gunpla engineer. I can do this. We can do this."

"Are you sure we shouldn't just call a service instead?" Tatsuya asked, a little dubious about the whole thing. Neither of them certainly had any trouble with gunpla, but this was real life, and he seriously had no idea what to do with cars.

Allan leaned on the car and dug out his phone. "Let's see..."

"You're actually going to look it up from the net?" Tatsuya exclaimed, his voice full of disbelief.

"Just checking a couple of things, that's all," the other man replied, and Tatsuya just stared at him, not knowing if he was supposed to laugh or cry. This was so unbelievably crazy, even considering how practical his partner was. Cars were not gunpla.

Allan continued his Internet check, and Tatsuya smiled to himself a little. On the other hand, he had never been the type to give up easily. Allan, like he had just admitted to himself, definitely knew practical stuff. This was certainly not going to be as easy as assembling gunpla, but if there were instructions, they could follow them. "So, did you find anything?" He asked, leaning over to look at what Allan was reading.

"Most likely. This looks like what we want. First we need to check the car manual - that's somewhere in the glove compartment I think - to see where we put that." Allan pointed at the metal object lying on the ground.

"I'll get it," Tatsuya offered and moved to the front. He opened the passenger-side door and looked into the glove compartment. The manual was there indeed, and he returned to Allan with the item in hand. "Here."

"And next..." Allan glanced up. "Next, I need to find my sunglasses. It's so stupidly bright out here. They should be somewhere on the side here..." He knelt down to check his suitcase, and Tatsuya smiled then headed back to the passenger side. He had a certain pair of sunglasses available in the car, and he grabbed them and put them on.

He returned to Allan and looked at what the man was doing. "Found them yet?" He inquired. The question was actually pointless since Allan was already wearing a pair of dark-colored sunglasses. That, and what Tatsuya actually paid more attention to than the sunglasses was the fact that Allan had also gotten rid of his shirt while he hadn't been looking, and said shirt was now laying on top of the Neo Zeong box inside of the car.

"Yup." Allan nodded and looked at his partner. "Well, at least one of us is always prepared," he commented with a grin.

Tatsuya looked at the spare car tire then at his partner. "Now what?"

Allan was already browsing the car manual, and Tatsuya settled for taking a look at the tool case. He managed to get it open and studied the contents, not at all sure what was what aside from an obvious screwdriver.

His pondering was interrupted by Allan handing him his phone. "Here, take a look. There's a video for this," he said. "Meanwhile..." He walked to the busted tire, knelt down and studied the tire for a bit then looked up. "Bring me the lug wrench," he requested, only to see Tatsuya stare at him with a confused look on his face. "It's the cross-shaped thing."

"Oh, uh..." Tatsuya stuffed the phone he had been given into his pocket and looked at the tool case. There was an item that fit the description, and he took it to his partner. "What is this for?"

"These," Allan pointed at the lug nuts. "Have to loosen them a bit." He looked at the wrench until he found an end that matched the nuts and tried to turn the wrench - and failed as the thing didn't budge at all. "Tatsuya? A little help here? As expected, last time the tires were changed was in a repair shop, and these were tightened with proper tools. They aren't exactly easy to remove by hand, so this is going to take a little bit of effort."

Tatsuya looked at him questioningly. not actually understanding half of what Allan was talking about. "Does that require force?"

"Yes," the man replied. "But it's fine, there's two of us! Come here and take a hold of that."

A little dubious - and still not so sure what Allan had explained - Tatsuya moved to where the other man was. He rolled up his sleeves and tried the wrench. It wasn't moving, and he had to wonder if he was trying to turn it in the wrong direction - then Allan put his hands over his, and a little bit of pulling later, the wrench moved slightly.

A minute later they had managed to get the nut to move enough. "It worked!" Allan said with a grin. "Hey, maybe you just have more muscle than I do," he added then moved the wrench on another lug nut. "Well, here we go. Next!"

Five minutes later they were both sitting on the ground next to the car, out of breath but pleased with the result; all the lug nuts had been loosened now. "I told you we can do this!" Allan exclaimed victoriously, and Tatsuya laughed, happy that he could help. Allan looked so cute when he was excited over some minor thing like this.

...And definitely pleasing to the eye, half-naked and slightly sweaty. Tatsuya pushed the thought from his mind, looked at the tire and wondered if he should get something to drink. There were a couple of water bottles inside the car, but it could wait until they were finished with this. "At least the cooperative approach seems to work," he said, smiling a little.

Allan looked at the car then picked up the metal object from earlier - a car jack, actually. "All doors are closed and hand brake is on, good. I'm going to stick this under there, so don't lean on the car, now." He studied the side of the car for a moment before positioning the car jack under one part and started working on it, and Tatsuya followed his every move, fascinated. He wondered if he should have offered to help, not that he had any idea how that thing worked. Manually, obviously. Whichever the case, Allan managed to lift the car up a little.

"This much manual labor is not my thing," Allan complained as he started taking out the lug nuts by hand. He got them out with ease and moved on to remove the busted tire. He managed to do so with some effort, and he rolled it to the back of the car and left it there on the ground.

"What do we do next?" Tatsuya asked, watching his partner. "The same in reverse?"

"Pretty much," Allan confirmed as he rolled the spare tire over. "Take a look at that video on my phone. It shows you how to do this."

He set to work getting the spare tire on the car, and Tatsuya dug the phone from his pocket and took a look at it. There was a video indeed, and he watched the whole thing, curious. It was explaining all kinds of things about the tire and the tools, and he now understood a little more of what Allan had been talking about.

"Tatsuya?" Allan called, and the youth raised his head and looked at the man. Allan had managed to get the tire on and lowered the car while he hadn't been looking. "We need to tighten these now."

"Right." Tatsuya moved closer and helped with the wrench again, this time in reverse.

"No way we're going to get them tight enough, but that can be left for the repair shop to check," Allan commented. "It'll be good enough for now. But see, we're done!" He stood up and started collecting the tools from the ground. "And it didn't even take that long! Now we're back on schedule, hmm?"

Tatsuya took a look at the time and nodded, pleased with how things had turned out. "Well, we didn't need to wait for any repair services," he said with a smile.

"Speaking of those." Allan had by now gathered all the tools and was preparing to put them back in the car trunk. "I could drop you off to the hotel once we get to our destination, and you could take care of things there," he suggested, working on putting the flat tire away. "And meanwhile I could take the car to a repair shop where they can check that everything's good. How does that sound?"

"It's a plan," Tatsuya agreed. A hotel room sounded awfully nice right now; he was starting to feel the weather, and a quick shower before work was in order. He had to remind himself that they were still near two-hour trip away from their destination, but it made little difference. He had definitely gotten a break from sitting in the car, too, and they could just catch up the lost time by not taking further breaks.

Allan finished putting the tools and their luggage back in the trunk. "And you know," he said with a wink. "I promise I won't leave the gunpla alone at any point!"

Tatsuya laughed at that. "I don't doubt it a bit." He headed back to the passenger's side door and stopped to look at the surroundings. The mountain view from where he was standing was actually rather breathtaking, and now that they didn't have to worry about the car, they could actually stop and look around. "A nice place for a break," he said, snapping a random photo of the scenery with Allan's phone before he put it in the car. "Even if we didn't exactly plan on stopping here."

"That it is," Allan agreed, sounding a little thoughtful. He opened the driver's door and picked up a bottle of water then walked in front of the car. "I guess we got lucky while being unlucky? Or something like that. Had the tire not gone flat, we wouldn't have stopped here and noticed how pretty this place is."

"That's an interesting way of putting it," Tatsuya admitted. He would have kept admiring the view a little longer, but from the corner of his eye, he caught Allan pouring some water on a small towel. Where had the man gotten that from? From his suitcase just before, obviously, he realized as he watched his partner wiping himself with the now-moist towel. He blinked a couple of times then just bluntly stared at Allan for moment.

Perhaps it was the weather that was making him rather hot all of a sudden, or perhaps it was something else. No, he told himself, it was most definitely the latter - the sight of his half-naked lover leaning on the car and wiping sweat off of his body. Whichever; being a little impulsive right now was in order.

Allan stretched a little and was apparently about to get more water, but next thing he knew, Tatsuya had pulled his hair back with both hands, walked in front of Allan and pinned him between himself and the car. There was no resistance at all, and Tatsuya looked at him with a smirk on his face.

"What...?" Allan questioned, giving his partner a silly smile. "Feeling hot?"

Their current position considered, Tatsuya realized that there was no way Allan had not instantly noticed that he was hard. "Your own fault for stripping," he stated.

"It's not like I was trying to seduce you, here," Allan protested. "I was simply trying to keep my clothes from getting dirty." He grinned. "Nor was I planning on anything, and it didn't even cross my mind that you'd suddenly start getting ideas..."

Considering this was nowhere near the craziest place where Tatsuya had gotten ideas, he wasn't really buying that. "Really?" His eyes narrowed behind the sunglasses and stared at the man, idly caressing his waist.

Allan's eyes moved behind the dark sunglasses he was wearing, and he tapped on Tatsuya's arm a little. "But you know," he said, tilting his head a little. "I do feel like I need to point out that we're outside, right next to a highway."

Tatsuya silenced him with a kiss, and Allan allowed it, putting down the towel he had been holding and wrapping his arms around his lover. When they parted, Tatsuya raised his head to take a look around then looked at his partner again. "A few hundred meters from the highway," he corrected. "And on the opposite side of the car from it while at it. Plus there's a couple of trees there to block the view."

"Eh, well. We've never gotten caught before," Allan pondered, then grinned again a little. "Maybe you enjoy danger?"

"I wonder?" Tatsuya pressed his partner down on the car hood and was about halfway leaning down to kiss him again when Allan suddenly shrieked and shot up, effectively pushing the youth off of him. They both lost balance as the result and ended up on the ground, and Tatsuya took a moment to regain his senses. "...Allan?!" He called, confused and worried.

"Sorry," Allan muttered, gritting his teeth a little. He then burst out laughing, and Tatsuya just stared at him, now ever more confused. He slowly got up to his feet, dusted off his clothes and held out his hand for his partner, and Allan took it, standing up with some effort.

"Are you all right?" Tatsuya inquired. "You just..."

Allan nodded then gestured at the car. "The car hood is burning hot," he explained, and Tatsuya turned to look at the car. He took a few steps closer and put his hand down on the hood, only to draw it back half a second later. "See? I told you," Allan said.

"Let me see you back," Tatsuya demanded, and the other man turned around obediently. Tatsuya studied his partner's back for a moment, but there didn't seem to be any visible burns on it. He ran his hand down from Allan's shoulder to his waist, but the man didn't seem to mind. "It doesn't hurt?" He asked, just to make sure.

"Not really," Allan confirmed. "Looks like I got up before there was any real damage. Well, maybe it stings a bit on my left shoulder. That was the part that hit the hood first and was there the longest."

Tatsuya took a closer look at the man's shoulder. Maybe a little bit of redness, but it didn't look bad. "Here?" He touched the reddish part gently, and Allan winced just a little. Tatsuya snatched the towel from where Allan had formerly put it down and picked up the water bottle from the ground, then poured some water on the towel and patted the injury lightly.

"The water's not very cold," Allan pointed out. "It does help, though."

"How about this?" Tatsuya moved closer and pressed a light kiss on his lover's shoulder.

"That helps too," the man replied with content smile on his face. He then took Tatsuya's hand, turned around and drew him closer into a kiss. Tatsuya leaned against him and closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of Allan's half-naked body against his.

Allan grinned once they parted. "Well, it looks like that little incident didn't bother you too much," he teased. He took the water bottle from Tatsuya, stepped back then circled to the side of the car and opened the passenger side door. He tossed the bottle down on the car floor and held out his hand. "Come here."

Tatsuya walked over to him, and Allan gave him a quick kiss then had him sit down sideways on the seat. He pressed Tatsuya down, partially over to the driver's seat and leaned over him. He grabbed his jacket - the same he had tossed into the car earlier and which was now lying on the steering wheel - rolled it up and put it under Tatsuya's head then looked at him. "Does this work?"

"It's fine," Tatsuya replied. He drew Allan down for a kiss then tried to put the towel he was still holding down to side, but Allan caught it before that.

"We might have use for this," Allan said with a smirk as he placed the small towel on the steering wheel. He then slipped his hand between them, opened Tatsuya's pants and pulled them down a little. Tatsuya returned the favor, enjoying the fact that now he had almost-naked Allan on top of him. The position was slightly awkward, with Allan holding himself up with one hand and both of their feet mostly out of the car, but it didn't really matter at this point.

The feeling of Allan's fingers wrapping around his erection mostly blanked his mind, and he gripped on the man's arm, fumbling to take his sunglasses off with his other hand. He pulled off Allan sunglasses as well, tossing them on top of the dashboard.

Allan's hard-on was against his now, and he bit his lip a little, the heat making him slightly delirious. All he could do was stare up at the man on top of him, looking down at him with such gentle, loving smile on his face that Tatsuya felt like he was melting.

It was maybe a good thing his passionate side took over again quick enough and he managed to push any emotional thoughts out of his mind. The need to have Allan was there, but unfortunately it seemed this was all they were going to be able to do right now. It didn't matter; Allan was way too good with his hands, Tatsuya had learned that years ago.

"Too... hot," he mumbled, taking a hold of Allan's shoulder. The way the man was rubbing both of their erections made him gasp for breath, and he closed his eyes and let the feeling take over. Allan certainly knew how to drive him crazy, but he wasn't about to care.

Then Allan's hand moved away, and Tatsuya opened his eyes and gave the man a questioning look. Was this really a good time to stop? Probably, he concluded as he noticed Allan had grabbed the towel from the steering wheel. He then stuck his hand back where it had been and returned to what he had been doing.

"Just a little precaution, that's all," Allan assured him. Though Allan was good at pretending, Tatsuya could tell his partner wasn't all that calm at this point. He was trembling just slightly, and the way he pushed himself down against his lover... There was something he needed and Tatsuya knew what Allan needed was him, and the feeling was perfectly mutual.

This was not the time or place, but he wanted - no, needed Allan so badly right now. If this was what he would have to settle for, so be it. "Nngh," he muttered between his clenched teeth. The heat was definitely taking a toll on him, but whether it was the outer one or the inner, that he didn't know. He was too close now, and the way Allan's fingers worked was making him go insane. "I'm... Can't... Al... lan...!"

He tensed once more as the release took over then slumped against the car seats, spent. Allan was nearing his limit at well and leaned down to press a little forceful kiss on his partner's lips before moving on to finish his work with a few more strokes. Too bad for him, Tatsuya enjoyed a kiss like that a little too much, and he grabbed his lover's head, keeping it down and their lips locked until he could feel Allan relax.

"That's... better," he whispered with a smile on his face.

Allan stayed still for a moment and tried to catch his breath. "You little devil, you," he said with a smile and kissed Tatsuya on the forehead. "I should have known better. Well, I suppose I can't claim I didn't enjoy that."

"No," Tatsuya replied with a smirk. He squirmed a little, and Allan pulled his hand - and the towel - from between them. He discarded the towel to the floor, gave his partner one more quick kiss then moved away and got up from the car.

Tatsuya watched as Allan fixed his pants a little then held out his hand, and he took it and let the man help him get up. He was apparently too tired to think straight as Allan had to fix his clothes as well. His hair was also a mess, and he smoothed it out with one hand, restoring it to its natural state. Then they both simply slumped down next to the car and took a few deep breaths. Some time passed, but it seemed neither of them said a word for a minute. They both needed a little bit of rest, and the weather was still rather intolerable.

They admired view a little longer before one of them finally spoke. "This is nice and all," Allan commented and stretched his arms. "And thus I hate to remind you that we've still got a long road ahead of us."

"I know, I know," Tatsuya replied with a bit of a yawn. "I wish we could stay for a little longer, but we're getting slightly behind schedule, aren't we?"

Allan shrugged. "A little, but it's all good if the earlier plan of me dropping you off at the hotel and taking the car to a repair shop is still on." He got up, picked up his shirt from the car and pulled it on. "That should save us some time, then we can grab lunch from somewhere... Or maybe you can pick up something from the hotel? In any case, it'll be fine!"

"All right," Tatsuya agreed. "Let's get moving." He go back in the car and fastened the seat belt, and Allan followed suit. He started the car and steered it ahead for a bit before making an u-turn and heading back to the highway.

"You look tired," Allan noted as he was signaling the turn for the highway. "How about a nap?"

"Maybe I should," Tatsuya mumbled. He then looked at Allan. "But you know what? I had a bit different idea earlier before we found that the car hood was not suitable for leaning against..." Allan gave his a curious glance, and he smirked.

"You and your ideas," Allan complained with a smile on his face. "I'll make it up to you," he then offered. "Another time."

Tatsuya just smiled back at him, though in the back of his mind, he was wondering how to make use of that promise. It didn't necessarily have to involve the car, but he could probably get Allan to agree to interesting things using this as an excuse. Anything he could come up with would have to wait till tonight, but it didn't really matter. Content with the thought, he closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

In the end, it didn't really matter if the road ahead was long, as long as Allan was there next to him.

END.
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Author's notes:

This fic is too long. Started writing back in April, and took till August to finish. Yuuuup.

- Elmina (August 2014)