To say that the room looked like a Christmas factory had exploded would be an understatement. There were bright bits of shiny metallic wrapping paper strewn over every available surface, including the beds and both desks, ribbons and bows stuck on the sides of the chairs and laundry basket and Orlando's skateboard, and the two-foot tall palm tree sitting on the window ledge was almost completely covered in tinsel. Orlando was in the middle of it all, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wearing his favorite purple and green plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt with a picture of The Grinch on it that said 'My heart's not the only thing that grows 3 sizes' (a Christmas present last year from Drew). His hair was curling wildly around his ears the way it did when Orlando ran his hands through it and he was in desperate need of a shave. To Karl's mind, he was completely and utterly perfect. Karl shut the door behind him, and carefully unwound his scarf from around his neck as his gaze swept over the room again. "I could swear this place wasn't a total disaster area when I left." His hands itched with the need to straighten the place up and put everything back where it belonged. Orlando gave Karl a cheerful, full-on grin that managed to rival the tinsel for brilliance and also managed to knock Karl for a loop. Which was nothing new. Every time Orlando smiled like that, Karl either lost his train of thought or the power of speech. "Hey, you're back," Orlando said. "And just in time to put bows on the presents." "Um." Karl furrowed his brows in confusion. He was pretty sure this was going to be one of those conversations where Orlando would expect that Karl had some sort of ninja mind-reading skills and could glean what Orlando was talking about by osmosis. Orlando was always saying that Karl's Clark Kent glasses should be good for something. (When Karl always replied that the glasses were good for something, i.e, his vision, Orlando always sighed like he was disappointed that Karl was not, in fact, Superman. Orlando had a lot of really odd thoughts about how Karl was really a superhero in disguise and Orlando was his trusty sidekick and/or Lois Lane.) "It's almost March," Karl pointed out, rather reasonably, he thought. "Why're you wrapping Christmas gifts?" "Head start on next year, duuuuuh," Orlando sing-song replied, in the same patient tone of voice he normally reserved for explaining things like Twitter and YouTube to his mostly deaf great-grandmother. "Right, okay." It sort of made sense. In a very Orlando-like way. There were honestly times when Karl was certain that Orlando did shit like this on purpose, just to mess with Karl's sense of order – or anal retentiveness, depending on who you asked. But then, it wasn't like Karl hadn't known the score when he and Orlando had gotten together – chaos and Orlando went hand in hand like a 4-6-3 double play, and the best way to deal with it was to roll with the punches and pray not to get washed up on shore with the seaweed. Or however it went. Karl was total balls with metaphors or similes or whichever. There was a reason he wasn't an English Lit major. "Didn't we decide after the thing with your sister's cat that you weren't allowed near wrapping paper anymore?" "That was so last year, dude." Orlando stuck a length of tape onto the end of gift that looked like it had been wrapped – and clumsily, at that – by a toddler. His talent at wrapping presents was a little like his singing – enthusiastic, but really, really bad. Not that his obvious lack of talent kept him from either. He gave Karl another sunny smile. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle in a really cute way. "You're always saying I need to work to improve my abilities." "I meant in running down line drives hit to third base, not in the arts and crafts." Orlando waved the package in front of him like the shininess alone would make his point for him. "This is very artistic. Don't be jealous of my mad skillz, yo. It's totally unbecoming." Karl took off his jacket and set it on the back of his chair before sitting cross-legged beside Orlando. He picked up one of the bows and stuck it to the end of one of the gifts. Best to go ahead and give in to the madness. "Of course. What was I thinking." Orlando leaned over to brush a kiss across Karl's lips. He tasted a little like red-hot Cheetos. "Besides, Christmas gifts are supposed to come wrapped in brightly colored paper and have lots of bows and ribbons. Anything less is an affront to the true meaning of the season." Karl frowned again. "I thought the meaning of the season was peace on earth and your mom's baked pineapple ham." Orlando sighed a long-suffering sigh. "You know what your problem is? You're hopeless at the grand gesture." One of these days, for real, Karl was going to ask for a road map to help him navigate Orlando's brain. "Grand gesture?" "You know, boombox over your head blaring Peter Gabriel outside the window in a totally creepy yet romantic way, that sort of thing." "Didn't John Cusack end that movie unemployed?" Karl asked, smushing another bow on another badly-wrapped box. He couldn't remember the name of the film, but he did remember Orlando forcing him to watch it one night and that he'd been less than impressed with John Cusack's slacker character, grand gestures with boomboxes notwithstanding. Orlando was constantly trying to fill what he called unforgivable lapses in Karl's pop culture education. Karl wasn't convinced he was missing much of anything, but if it made Orlando happy, he was willing to go along with it. Besides, Orlando was always up for discussing the cover spread and throwing a slider vs. a curve to lefties, so it all evened out. "Like I said, hopeless," Orlando sighed, slumping his shoulders in dramatic disappointment. Karl thought maybe Orlando had missed his true calling and should have gone into theatre like Drew. Then he thought better of it – his life was already crazy enough without the two of them conspiring all the time in hushed voices like some Shakespearean tragedy. "You knew that I was hopeless when you fell in love with me," Karl pointed out, pushing his glasses back up his nose. Orlando poked him in the chest. "Don't use logic when I'm trying to stay mad at you." "Because I want you to stay mad at me?" Karl asked, confused. "Yes. No. See, you've done it," Orlando said, waving his hands at Karl like he was trying to air-dry him or something. "You're all sitting there with those little forehead wrinkles that you get when you're confused and it's totally way too cute for me to stay mad at you." Karl caught himself before he reached up to his forehead to see if he could feel the wrinkles. "Uh, thanks? I think." "Try to pay a guy a compliment and – COME IN!" Orlando shouted when the pounding started at the door. The door opened and Chad stuck his head in the space, all crazy messed-up bedhead and wild eyes. He looked like he'd just crawled out of the lab and had forgotten what sunlight looked like. "Jared and Misha are organizing a co-ed flag football game down in the quad and Jared says needs his best men on his team." Karl was already shaking his head. "Man, Jared knows we're not supposed to –" Orlando slapped a hand over Karl's mouth and gave Chad a thumbs up with his free hand. "Tell your boyfriend and Jared we'll be down in five. Or as soon as I can remind Karl that we're young, dumb college kids and not our grandparents." "Good luck with that," Chad grinned. "Yeah, you're right. Give me ten minutes," Orlando said, then yelped when Karl licked his palm. "Dude, that's just nasty." "You deserved it," Karl tried to say, but it came out all garbled and sounded more like "Ew dwzd eed" than anything in the English language. Which, whatever, Orlando knew what he meant. "I don't wanna know," Chad grimaced, and squeezed his eyes shut like Karl and Orlando were about to strip and have sex in front of him. Karl'd always thought he was a little conservative before he met Chad and realized he had nothing on Chad for uptight. Although, Karl could admit that Chad had gotten better at learning to relax since he and Misha had been dating. "Ten minutes," Orlando affirmed. "And I promise we won't come down reeking of come." "I hate you, dude. So, so much," Chad stated, and slammed the door shut. Orlando removed his hand from Karl's mouth. "Seriously, babe, if Chad is acting more adventurous than you, something is wrong with the universe. It's flag football. Which we're allowed to play. Our season is done." "Football season, sure. But we're supposed to be training for baseball. Which means no –" "No extracurricular yada yada, whatever. It's exercise. We're supposed to be exercising, right?" Orlando asked, but pressed a firm kiss to Karl's lips before Karl could answer. "Besides, you know you'd rather do that than mattress jousting." Karl groaned. "That's because last time we held a tournament Josh almost broke my fucking wrist. Can you imagine what Coach Bana or Coach Morgan would say if we injured ourselves while beating each other up with bedding?" "Yeah, yeah, I get it." Orlando nudged Karl's shoulder. "But still, it was totally fun as shit, admit it." "Hell no, I'm not admitting dick," Karl replied, even though they both knew the truth. He got to his feet, pulling Orlando up so he could wrap his arms around Orlando's waist. The best thing about being with Orlando – aside from a few obvious things (hey, Karl may be a little prudish, but he was still a normal, healthy male) – was that Orlando was always willing to cuddle. Orlando made a happy noise and nuzzled just behind Karl's ear. "Besides, you've got a way more dangerous job." "I do?" Orlando pulled back just far enough to nod his head in an ultra-serious manner. "Yeah, dude, you've got to do all of those press conferences after games. Me, I just get to hit the showers and wait for you to finish up being all erudite and shit." "Don't remind me, man." Most days, Karl loved being the starting QB and a starting pitcher, but he never got used to the obligations outside the game. "I'm supposed to talk to the media after tomorrow's practice. Coach Morgan thinks it'll be good training of my leadership skills or whatever for the upcoming season." Honestly, if there was one thing Karl hated worse than anything, it was public speaking. (Orlando liked to point out that Karl was on the debate team, how the hell could he hate speaking publicly, but that was a completely different thing to Karl. Debate team was, like, scripted. Karl was great with scripts. He was lousy at winging it. He was certain Orlando would blame this on his lack of imagination. He was just as certain that Orlando would probably be right.) "You'll be fine," Orlando smiled. "Just take a deep breath and picture them all naked while you're talking to them and you'll totally be cool." Karl had a sudden vivid mental image of the guys that covered college baseball for ESPN in their underwear and shuddered in horror. "Okay, yeah, not cool." "Okay, picture me naked instead." As always, when Karl pictured Orlando naked, he got half-hard. "That'd just distract me from answering questions." For some reason, that answer earned him another lingering kiss before Orlando spoke again. "Speaking of, did you get a look at the new sports reporter for the R&B during our practice yesterday?" "Yeah, sure," Karl shrugged. "Katie McGrath. She seemed nice enough. I mean, for a journalism major." "Nice?" Orlando placed a hand over Karl's forehead like he was checking for a fever. "That's all you have to say about her?" "Uh, she's very knowledgeable about football and baseball, which is probably why she's covering sports for the college paper?" Karl shrugged. "Jesus, you're worse than hopeless." Orlando shook his head in that sad way he did when Karl didn't know lyrics to Bruno Mars songs or couldn't recite lines from The Princess Bride from memory. "That girl's got a rack that would rival Katy Perry's and all you have to say is she's nice?" Ah, that. "Of course I noticed her rack," Karl replied, insulted that Orlando would have to ask (see above, re: healthy male.) "I'm not blind – " "Thank God – " " – it's just, um, she's a professional. I can't be staring at her tits while she's trying to get a quote from me about the upcoming season." Orlando waggled his eyebrows. "You could always say you'll give her an exclusive interview in exchange for a threesome." "Wouldn't that be, like, a violation of her code of ethics as a journalist or something?" "Totally hopeless," Orlando declared, and patted Karl's shoulder in a sympathetic manner. "You're worse than Chad some days." Karl was sure he was supposed to be insulted by the comparison, but he was used to it. "Because he hasn't found a way to get Professor Hendricks to strip off her shirt?" "What's the point of having a best friend who has a smokin' hot professor if they can't get them naked and send you pictures?" Orlando asked in an indignant huff. "Coach Bana would kick his ass?" Karl ventured. And, dude, it was totally valid. Even though Coach Bana and Professor Hendricks had been going out a couple of months, Coach Bana was, like, really protective of Professor Hendricks. Given that Coach Bana's best friend was crazy, hippie Professor Mortensen, Karl wasn't sure he blamed Coach Bana for acting the way he did. "If Chad was a true friend, then getting her to at least show off her bra would be worth the risk." "You know Drew'd totally smack you right about now for being a sexist pig," Karl pointed out. "Nah, I think she wants to see the professor's tits as bad as the rest of us, if only to see if they're real." "They have to be real." Karl would, hand on the Bible, stop believing in God if Professor Hendricks' breasts were man-made. It'd be like finding out Albert Pujols was juicing or Orlando hated to swallow. Orlando let out a lusty sigh. "Maybe you should think about Professor Hendricks and Katie McGrath mud-wrestling in lingerie while you're talking to the press." "Definitely distracting," Karl declared, after a moment of reverential silence where he cemented the mental picture in his mind for later use. "Hey, wait, does this new thing you've got for Professor Hendricks mean you're over your crush on Professor Sinclair?" "Are you high?" Orlando's eyes grew comically wide. "Hell no, you saw the jeans he was wearing in yesterday's class. How am I expected to get over an ass like that?" "It is a nice ass," Karl admitted. "But not as nice as Professor Bean's." Then again, Karl was biased when it came to his own crush on Professor Bean. "I'll give you that one," Orlando conceded. He really was the best lover ever, Karl thought. (He and Orlando still had the boyfriend vs. lover argument, but not as often as they used to. It was one of the few arguments Karl counted as a win in his column.) "Hey, maybe you should imagine them mud-wrestling. Only, like, naked and not in lingerie, because that's a little too kinky, even for me." Karl tried to picture Professor Bean in a lace bra and couldn't. Professor Bean was, like, the perfect embodiment of manly and rugged. "Sometimes I worry about you," he told Orlando. "I just want you to know that." "Yes, but you love me madly, anyway." "Always," Karl replied simply, because one) it was expected, and more importantly, it was true. Orlando's eyes softened and the kiss he gave Karl was even softer. "Love you, too," he murmured, then nudged at Karl's shoulder. "Now, let's get a shake on. Totally safe and boring flag football awaits." Karl made a wavey motion at Orlando's pajamas. "Not until you change into some jeans and put on some shoes and a sweatshirt." "Spoilsport," Orlando grumbled, but went to his dresser to snag a pair of jeans. Onto Experimental Research
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