Marmite - an off-the-cuff ficlet
by Elyndys
Heero wandered in the direction of the kitchen. Life felt particularly good this morning - the sun was shining, times were quiet, and somewhere in the house was his beautiful lover. He smiled to himself, knowing how shocked the others would be if they knew Heero's secret soppy thoughts. But right now, it was too nice a day to care. As he approached the kitchen door he could hear Duo scraping toast into the sink - now he thought about it there was a smell of burning around - and he smiled again as he saw Duo energetically spreading something from a jar onto the freshly-scraped toast. He watched quietly, appreciating Duo's enthusiasm in everything, even breakfast. He loved the way Duo really MEANT everything he did - whether slicing mobile suits in half or hoovering the carpet or covering himself in chocola... Heero got a sudden urge to do more than just watch Duo, and swiftly crossed the kitchen and gathered Duo into his arms.
Duo grinned. "Morning." Hearing Heero's silence he continued. "Well,
this is a nice squeeze for so early... Got something planned?"
"Maybe."
Duo continued to smile. "And what would that be?" He put the uneaten
half of the slice of toast on the counter as Heero turned him round
and kissed him passionately on the mouth.
Until...
"Eugh!" Heero abruptly pulled away from the kiss, wiping frantically
at his mouth. "What in God's name did you spread on that toast?!"
Duo frowned. "What?" He picked up the jar. "This? It's Marmite. A
European thing, I understand... from those little islands in the West
of the old United Nations of Europe... I once found some when I was at Quatre's, you know how he has lots of foreign cuisine, and I liked it, so I kept getting him to get me some..." His voice trailed away.
"Don't you like it Heero?"
But Heero was already heading towards the bathroom, where there was a
tube of extra-strong mint toothpaste with his name on it.
Soooo... a little note by way of explanation! Marmite is ... a very
hard thing to explain! It is made from yeast extract, is dark brown,
has a strong taste and you spread it very thinly on toast. It's a
love-it-or-hate-it thing - I, like Duo, love it! (My other half, he's
like Heero though - and it's great fun to tease!) They actually market it with that slogan though - "You either love it or hate it" - and the adverts are very amusing, like where the guy drinks sour milk because it's the first thing he comes to when he wants to get rid of the taste... If there are any antipodeans around, I'm told Vegemite is much the same thing…
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